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r 







Dr. Benedict Lust, who has achieved most 
extraordinary results from the new super-bath, 
and Christos Parasco, who brought the idea 
to him. 




The FOUNTAIN 
of YOUTH 

or Curing by TV^ater 

How You May Quickly Over¬ 
come Acute and Chronic Illness 
by the Use of the Biological 
Blood-Washing Bath 


By 

BENEDICT LUST, M.D., N.D. 

With an Introduction by Bernarr Macfadden 


NEW YORK 

MACFADDEN PUBLICATIONS, INC. 
1923 


"RMsi2> 

.US 



Copyright 1923 

By MACFADDEN PUBLICATIONS, Inc. 

New York City 

In the United States and Great Britain 


Printed 
in U. S. A. 


SEP 18 1923 

©C1A757591 


INTRODUCTION 



‘HERE are, in every generation, a 


few outstanding discoveries that con¬ 
tribute in a marked degree to health and 
to long life. They may consist in a bet¬ 
ter knowledge of food values, they may 
uncover certain facts in hygiene and right 
living that materially modify bodily 
functions, or they may even take the form 
of some profound medical discovery of 
general significance. 

It would seem that such a contribution 
to scientific advance has recently been 
made by a young Greek-American, Mr. 
Christos Parasco, who has developed a 
modification in hydrotherapy that prom¬ 
ises to revolutionize the treatment of 
many diseases—especially chronic forms. 


Introduction 

This treatment is rightly described as 
the “Blood-Washing Bath.” It is being 
taken up by leading sanitoriums of the 
country, and by private individuals every¬ 
where. Astonishing and revolutionary re¬ 
sults are being obtained through its use. 

This prolonged hot shower-bath ap¬ 
plied with a new and wonderfully simple 
apparatus, actually washes the poisons 
from the system. It relieves acutely 
painful conditions in a manner almost 
miraculous. It brings about a relaxed 
condition of the nervous system that 
favors sound, restful sleep and rapid re¬ 
cuperation from fatigue, overwork, or 
those conditions in which the metabolism 
of the body is disturbed, so that harmful 
products are formed. 

It produces an equalization of circula¬ 
tion, relieves undue pressure, provides 
the body with the proper amount of 
rich, nourishing blood, and restores nor- 

vi 


Introduction 

mal tone to the heart and other internal 
organs. 

This new form of hydrotherapy stimu¬ 
lates powerfully the activity of the skin. 
It helps this important organ to throw off 
poisons that might otherwise be left to 
accumulate in the system. 

It therefore tends to clear up all forms 
of skin troubles caused by the retention 
therein of toxic material. 

Dr. Benedict Lust, who has taken a 
profound interest in Mr. Christos Par- 
asco’s discovery, has had a large experi¬ 
ence with the use of this new treatment. 

Details of the experience of Dr. Lust 
and his students will be found in the 
present volume. I have followed this de¬ 
velopment with intense interest. I firmly 
believe that it is the most important con¬ 
tribution to natural methods of treatment 
that has been made since Vincent Pries- 
nitz, the student farmer in Graefemberg, 

vii 


Introduction 


Austrian Silesia, first promulgated the 
theory of cure by water treatment, and 
made it possible for the German priest, 
Mgr. Sebastian Kneipp, to give to the 
world that marvelous system that has 
been the means of saving countless lives. 

Dr. Benedict Lust, in this vitally inter¬ 
esting little book, has given us an outline, 
first, of the history of baths and bathing 
in general; next, a description of the vari¬ 
ous kinds of baths used by hydropathic 
specialists; and finally, a complete ac¬ 
count of the “blood-washing bath” itself. 
He brings to you vital information. Read 
every word of this book—don’t skim or 
skip. And put its precepts into practice. 

It may be the means of increasing your 
length of life by many years, and of mak¬ 
ing you healthier and happier during all 
your days on earth. 

Bernarr Macfadden. 

viii 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Introduction. By Bernarr Mac- 

FADDEN. v 

I. The Bath as an Index of Civili¬ 
zation . 1 

II. Bathing for Health. 25 

III. Bathing for Beauty. 36 

IV. Baths as “Big Medicine”. 47 

V. The History of Hydrotherapy. . 55 

VI. How the Blood is Stimulated by 

Hot Water. 65 

VII. Wholesome Water vs. Dangerous 

Drugs. 70 

VIII. The Internal Use of Water- 76 

IX. The Intestinal Bath and the 

Purification of the Inner Body 81 

X. The New Blood-Washing Bath.. 91 

XI. How the Prolonged Hot Shower 

Invigorates and Rejuvenates 130 














The Fountain of Youth 

Or Curing by Water 

CHAPTER I 

The Bath as an Index of Civilization 

''JpHB status of civilization among any 
race of people is measured to a very 
considerable extent by their use of water. 
Aqueducts and sewers are indispensable 
adjuncts to community growth and civic 
well-being. It is a fact that the high 
quality of culture achieved by Egypt, 
Athens, Rome, Jerusalem, Carthage, 
Alexandria and other great centers of the 
ancient world went hand in hand with a 
liberal water supply. 

To be sure, there are many primitive 
1 


The Fountain of Youth 

races (dwelling usually in or near the 
tropics, it will be noted) who are enthu¬ 
siastic and indefatigable bathers. Their 
bathing is not done for sanitary reasons, 
however, but has been made a racial habit 
by centuries of a certain environment, in¬ 
cluding the heat of the climate and the 
nearness and plentifulness of the water 
supply. If they had been planted in an¬ 
other quarter of the world, they might 
not have bathed at all. 

On the other hand, scarcity of water 
furnishes an adequate excuse for infre¬ 
quency of bathing among many peoples. 
No one can reasonably blame an Arab 
for carefully saving the water in his prec¬ 
ious oases for drinking, instead of bathing 
in it. In some districts of Russia, where 
there are but few rivers and lakes, there 
are villages containing one hundred or 
more houses in which there is scarcely 
sufficient water available for drinking 
2 


An Index of Civilization 


purposes. In these benighted spots, baths 
are a great novelty. In fact, these folk 
are said to experience only three in the 
course of their stay on earth—one just 
after they are born, another just before 
they are married, and a third just after 
they die. 

A warm climate and warm water 
invite to enthusiastic indulgence in a 
practice which, if one had to chop 
through four feet of ice to get the matu¬ 
tinal tub, would be indulged in only by 
the very heroic or the very foolhardy. 
Therefore the South Sea Islanders, es¬ 
pecially the Hawaiians and the Fijians, 
are remarkably fond of bathing, and are 
expert swimmers; while some tribes of 
North American Indians know so little 
about the external use of water that they 
usually drown if they happen to tumble 
out of their canoes into deep water. 

In the icy waters of Labrador or 
3 


The Fountain of Youth 

Greenland, where the temperature of the 
water rarely rises above the freezing 
point—that is, freezing to human beings 
—swimming is almost as uncommon as 
snowballing at the delta of the Amazon. 
Therefore the Eskimo grows up, becomes 
an old man at forty, and dies of senility 
at fifty without ever enjoying a water bath 
unless he should at some time happen to 
be tipped over out of his kaiak or canoe 
by a walrus. 

WOMEN MORE CIVILIZED THAN MEN 

If civilization be measured by fre¬ 
quency and thoroughness of bathing, it 
must be conceded that women are more 
civilized than men. For the love of 
cleanliness seems to be more a part of the 
normal woman’s make-up than it is of 
man’s. This is perhaps most apparent 
among the families of laborers, miners, 
4 


An Index of Civilization 

quarrymen, teamsters and those engaged 
in rough, dirty work. Familiarity breeds 
in these men a certain habit of uncleanli¬ 
ness. They may reason subconsciously 
that it is useless to go to so much trouble 
to remove what is so easily smeared on 
again. 

Women, on the contrary, are natural 
sanitarians, whose lives are dedicated to 
one long struggle with dirt and disorder; 
which may be a wise provision of Nature 
for the preservation of the race, the young 
of which so quickly succumb to the evils 
and illnesses engendered by uncleanliness. 

Generally speaking, however, it may 
be said that the instinct for cleanliness is 
inherent in man. When he has the time 
and the opportunity—and often when he 
hasn’t—he improves both by taking a 
bath. The “bath instinct,” indeed, goes 
right down to our biological tap-roots, 
for the single-celled organisms which 
5 


The Fountain of Youth 

were our earliest ancestors originated and 
lived in the sea. Even now, in our pres¬ 
ent highly developed state, nine-tenths of 
our body cells are aquatic, and can exist 
only in a saline bath. If they were to be 
dried, and thereby deprived of their bath 
of blood and serous fluid, they would give 
up the ghost. 

This is one reason why most normal in¬ 
dividuals love the sea. It is the response 
of the myriads of particles of sea-water 
in our tissues to the restless and ever- 
changing vibration of the great Mother 
of All Life, the source of our being, with¬ 
out the cleansing surge of whose tides life 
on this planet would soon cease to exist. 

So we have much reason to love the 
water and to eulogize the bath. It is a 
tribute to our good sense and increasing 
intelligence as a race that this love is 
increasing, and that the building of bath¬ 
tubs goes on apace. If we have oppor- 
6 


An Index of Civilization 

tunity to continue it a few thousand years 
longer, it may do much to carry human¬ 
kind to heights of civilization as yet 
undreamed of. 

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE BATH 

The bath is as old as the oldest civili¬ 
zation. In the very earliest historical 
records its benefits were extolled. Bath¬ 
ing was a definite medical prescription 
among some of the ancients. 

Hippocrates, the pioneer of the natu¬ 
ral method of healing, praises the great 
value of the bath for all acute and chronic 
diseases. 

The Hindoos, Egyptians and Persians 
deemed it a sacred duty to bathe them¬ 
selves every day. In 320 B.C., at the time 
of Alexander the Great, there already 
were “warm free baths” for the public. 
And how far had popular hygiene pro- 
7 


The Fountain of Youth 

gressed in highly cultivated Greece! All 
Hellenic schools were provided with 
baths and sprays. Also, the ancients 
knew quite as well as we do the invigor¬ 
ating effect of the sea-bath. 

In the halcyon days of the Roman Em¬ 
pire, before it had been drained of its 
best blood in wars of conquest, and be¬ 
fore the slave and the mercenary fought 
the campaigns and battles that paved the 
way for its decadence, Rome built the 
finest and most luxuriously appointed 
bath-houses that have ever been seen on 
this planet. 

In these wonderful buildings bathing 
was carried to the acme of esthetic per¬ 
fection. It developed into an art—a na¬ 
tion-wide worship of the Clean Skin. To 
assist and amplify this idolatry, the Ro¬ 
mans included in their bathing emporium 
amphitheaters, gymnasia and gardens, 
also libraries, reading and lecture rooms, 
8 



An Index of Civilization 


and courts, where all Rome could come 
and spend all the time it had to spend. 

THE MAGNIFICENT ROMAN BATHS 

A faint idea of the magnificence of 
these wonders of the ancient world may 
be gained from the statement that the 
Baths of Caracalla covered a quarter of a 
square mile. This building contained a 
great court for exercise, large halls for 
the various forms of baths, complete li¬ 
braries at either end, a giant swimming 
tank, and many other useful and orna¬ 
mental features. In one hall there were 
marble seats capable of accommodating 
1,800 bathers at one time—although this 
was excelled in the Baths of Diocletian, 
which provided seating facilities for 
3,200 bathers in one room. 

The splendor of the architecture and 
9 


The Fountain of Youth 

the lavishness and beauty of the decora¬ 
tions are almost inconceivable. Many of 
the finest surviving examples of classic 
sculpture were among the ornaments of 
these baths—the Laocoon, the Capitoline 
Venus, the Farnese Bull, the Hercules 
now in Naples, and a number of the best 
specimens of the work of Phidias and 
Praxiteles. 

Inside and outside, the buildings were 
embellished with mosaics, paintings, 
stucco work and all the most cunning 
forms of decoration known to those lav¬ 
ish times. The giantism of the Romans 
which led them to level a mountain to 
build a forum was nowhere more evident 
than in these extravagant baths. The 
ruins, for instance, of a single room of 
the Baths of Diocletian, 300 feet by 
90, were, centuries later, converted by 
Michael Angelo into a church, now one 
10 





An Index of Civilization 


of the most beautiful and imposing struc¬ 
tures in Rome. 

BUILDING ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY 
BATHS IN A YEAR 

The Emperor Augustus built in a 
single year (36 B.C.) not less than 170 
public baths, for he well knew that no 
gift would be more highly appreciated 
by a people who had learned to value the 
bath both as a luxury and as a means of 
preserving its health and vigor. How 
important the bath was to the Romans of 
the classic age is evidenced by the fact 
that in the year 300 there were in the im¬ 
perial city about eight hundred public 
baths! And in addition they operated 
fourteen so-called thermals, each one of 
which accommodated thousands of peo¬ 
ple at a time. 

The most natural and the cheapest 
11 


The Fountain of Youth 

remedy, water, was used in such enor¬ 
mous quantities that great viaducts were 
built to bring it into the city. And any¬ 
one who, during the cold season, did not 
care to bathe, could stay as long as he 
liked in the thermals, warming himself 
there without any charge. What modern 
public institutions can vie with these? 

MINGLING OF THE SEXES 

The ladies of the period were provided 
with bath-houses quite as gorgeously ap¬ 
pointed as, although constructed on a less 
stupendous scale than, those patronized 
by their genial lords. By the second cen¬ 
tury A.D., however, men and women were 
bathing together in the great public ther¬ 
mae. These baths cost the patron on an 
average less than a cent of our money, 
and many of them, established by em¬ 
perors and rulers as a sop to make the 
12 


An Index of Civilization 


populace forget their heinous oppression 
and abuse of power, were entirely free. 
These baths later became the rendezvous 
of the most profligate and degenerate 
among all the Roman populace—the 
scene of unbridled debauchery and ex¬ 
cesses. 

Wherever Romans conquered and set¬ 
tled they built public baths, the ruins of 
which remain to this day, sources of won¬ 
der and admiration. 

Some of the emperors and fabulously 
wealthy courtesans were given to the most 
extravagant bathing habits. The Em¬ 
press Poppaea treated herself to a daily 
bath in asses’ milk—a very inferior, un¬ 
sanitary and uncleansing medium. In 
the houses of the rich all sorts of cosmetic 
baths were indulged in by women, and 
also by the Roman Beau Brummells, in 
the effort to achieve a white, soft, baby¬ 
like skin. 


13 


The Fountain of Youth 

After the fall of Rome followed “a 
thousand years without a bath,” as Miche¬ 
let characterized the Dark Ages—a pe¬ 
riod when bathing became almost a lost 
art; until the returning Crusaders, in the 
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, brought 
back the hot baths of the Orient and 
spread them all over Europe, where they 
have been more or less in evidence ever 
since—though not always enjoying the 
best of reputations. Indeed, in England 
they were known as “hothouses,” a name 
which at length came to have the same 
meaning as “brothel.” 

This development was undoubtedly the 
result of the mixed bathing practiced 
throughout Europe during the Middle 
Ages—especially on the Continent. To 
this day, the bathing resorts of the world, 
from Hot Springs to Wiesbaden, from 
Marienbad to Saratoga, are lax morally; 
doubtless because those baths and mas- 
14 


An Index of Civilization 

sages which tend to relax and enervate, 
which foster luxurious ease and the de¬ 
velopment of Sybaritic habits, to some 
extent unbrace the moral armor and favor 
ethical laxity. 

Yet the instinct and practice of cleanli¬ 
ness is inherently in the direction of moral 
improvement. Only its abuse—as with 
the abuse of eating and other natural 
functions—is-immoral. Cleanliness is in¬ 
deed akin to godliness. 

JAPANESE THE MOST CONSISTENT 
BATHERS 

There is one country only which has, 
from earliest times, appreciated the real 
benefits of bathing and which has devel¬ 
oped the practice into an art. In this 
respect it leads all other peoples and 
countries. This country is Japan. 

No other country has as many baths, 
15 


The Fountain of Youth 


no other country knows the value of bath¬ 
ing so well. All that other countries 
have discovered and introduced—except¬ 
ing the new form of bath which I shall 
describe later in these chapters—the Jap¬ 
anese possess and have long possessed. 

In fact, this Japanese passion for bath¬ 
ing is a national heritage—a development 
brought about partly from living in a 
land that has endless volcanoes which can 
be used for heating plants, and partly 
from the fact that experience has taught 
them the advantage of keeping the pores 
open, and the skin active and free from 
contaminating substances. Also, the bath 
keeps the little brown people warm in 
winter—many, especially the children, 
bathing as often as four or five times a 
day for this purpose. 

So, Japan has no “Great Unwashed.” 
One may be hemmed in by the densest 
crowds on the sultriest summer day, or 
16 


An Index of Civilization 


stand among toiling workmen whose few 
garments are saturated with perspiration, 
and never gasp from that disagreeable 
summer odor of humanity which would 
be all too noticeable in almost any other 
country under similar circumstances. 

The Japs make cleanliness of body the 
first of all virtues, and the daily bath the 
most indispensable of all duties. While 
New York waited until 1891 before sup¬ 
plying its poor with baths at a reasonable 
rate, Tokyo, the metropolis of Japan, pro¬ 
vided such opportunities as far back as 
their historical records go. 

EIGHT HUNDRED PUBLIC BATHS AMONG 

THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE 

Tokyo has today about eight hundred 
public baths, in which 300,000 persons, 
almost a fourth of the population, bathe 
every day, at a cost of about a cent of our 
money for each bath. 

17 


The Fountain of Youth 

Besides this, every family, except the 
poorest, has its own private bathroom, or 
at least its own bath-tub. And they don’t 
use this tub to store coal or soiled clothes 
in, either—as do many of our unregen¬ 
erates. They use their tubs for bathing 
purposes. 

If one stops at the humblest village inn 
for a meal in Japan, the first course is 
always a hand- and foot-bath. And if one 
remains overnight, hardly is a room as¬ 
signed before a girl appears to conduct 
the guest to the bath—at the expense 
of “the house.” These brown brothers 
look in open-mouthed astonishment at a 
stranger who negledts to take at least one 
bath a day. 

It has been charged against the Japs 
that they value the bath, not so much for 
its cleansing effect, as for the sensuous 
luxury of the practice. Even were this 
true, we might grant them absolution for 
18 


An Index of Civilization 


it, inasmuch as it leaves them the cleanest 
people on earth. 

But it is hardly true. For the aspect 
of their houses and streets demonstrates 
that they value cleanliness for its own 
sake. The Jap does not indulge in any 
halfway measures in his ablutions—such 
as a cold dip, or shower, or sponge. He 
gets right into a tub of water almost hot 
enough to scald a European, and he re¬ 
mains there for a considerable length of 
time. 

RAISING BODY TEMPERATURE BY A HOT 
BATH 

The bathing temperature adopted by 
the Japanese is usually about 130 degrees 
Fahrenheit. Our very hot bath ranges 
from 104 to 110 degrees. The head is 
usually bathed in hot water before the 
bath is entered, in order to dilate and 
19 


The Fountain of Youth 

relax the blood-vessels feeding the brain, 
and prevent the cerebral anemia which 
might otherwise follow. If any palpita¬ 
tion of the heart is developed, or if any 
sense of oppression is experienced, they 
get out, and stand not on the order of 
their doing so. 

It is interesting to note the physical 
effects of such a bath. Usually the blood 
is driven out of the surface vessels, and 
a pallor ensues, which lasts but a few 
seconds before the reaction takes place 
and the blood rushes once more to the 
surface. The pulse is first “slowed 
down,” and then accelerated. The res¬ 
piration is not greatly affected, although 
the breathing is almost entirely from the 
chest—somewhat as in the case of our 
cold-water shock. 

The temperature of the body rises to 
104 degrees or more—an effect due to heat 
retention, combined with heat absorption. 

20 


An Index of Civilization 

This rise in temperature occurs rapidly, 
usually within five or six minutes, return¬ 
ing to normal in less than half an hour 
after the bath. The arteries become re¬ 
laxed, although the pulse is quite full. 

Perspiration is quite profuse after leav¬ 
ing the bath. A cold douche is usually 
taken before concluding the ceremony. 

HOT BATHS DO NOT PREDISPOSE TO COLDS 

It is commonly believed that these 
baths predispose to colds, but such is not 
the case. A warm bath relaxes the sur¬ 
face blood-vessels, and thus predisposes 
to colds. The hot bath, however, pro¬ 
duces a temporary paralysis of the surface 
circulation, and prevents contraction of 
the capillaries after exposure to cold. 
This is proved by the fact that the Japs, 
in the interior towns, run naked on the 
wintry streets after taking their hot baths, 
21 


The Fountain of Youth 

and rarely suffer any ill effects from the 
practice. 

The resistance to cold induced by such 
baths is so lasting, in fact, that, as already 
mentioned, the people use them as an 
economical means of keeping warm in 
winter in their inadequately heated 
houses. Their whole effect seems to be 
stimulating, rather than the reverse; they 
do not produce weakness of any kind. 

One custom of the Japs, which seems 
repugnant to Occidentals is the habit of 
promiscuous communal bathing, prac¬ 
ticed among the lower classes in the inte¬ 
rior towns. Yet, though naked, there is 
no suggestion of indecency, and the bath¬ 
ers seem as oblivious of their nudity as so 
many splendid animals might be. The 
custom has existed from time immemo¬ 
rial, and, in its working out, is really a 
tribute to the child-mindedness of these 
interesting people. 


22 


An Index of Civilization 


More to be condemned, perhaps, is 
their habit of indiscriminately bathing in 
the same water with a score or more of 
others. Yet even this may not be so repre¬ 
hensible as it might appear at first glance. 
For they soap themselves and wash thor¬ 
oughly before entering the great tubs or 
vats. And afterwards they rinse them¬ 
selves with a bucket or two of cool water, 
dashed over them before leaving the bath¬ 
ing place. 

While we could probably improve 
greatly upon certain Japanese methods, 
we must nevertheless admit that the fre¬ 
quent and thorough ablutions of these 
people are a most commendable national 
trait, and one which we might, with 
profit, emulate and universally adopt. 

For there are two things much worse 
than bathing Japanese style, each one 
worse than the other. One is to bathe 
23 


The Fountain of Youth 


seldom. The other is to bathe not at all. 
So give credit where credit is due, and 
pin the blue ribbon on the blouse of the 
Jap—the world’s champion bather. 


24 









CHAPTER II 


Bathing for Health 

I N order to understand the method by 
which hydrotherapy acts, and by 
which disease is overcome by various 
forms of bathing, it is necessary to know 
something about the skin and its forma¬ 
tion. 

The skin consists of two layers, the up¬ 
per skin, or epidermis, and the under skin, 
dermis, or cutis. The epidermis consists 
of many fine layers of cells, which are 
flattened out and dried up. This hard¬ 
ened skin is very important in a physio¬ 
logical way; it resists pressure and wear 
very effectively, and possesses a high 
grade of elasticity. It is furthermore a 
bad conductor of heat and electricity, and 
25 


The Fountain of Youth 

strongly resists chemical influences. Thus 
it protects the cutis and underlying tis¬ 
sues against countless injuries. 

STRUCTURE OF THE TRUE SKIN 

Underneath the epidermis is the cutis, 
or under skin, which has its name on ac¬ 
count of its stability and elasticity. It is 
from this skin—of lower animals—that 
leather is made. And, by the way, human 
skin is quite as tough and strong as that 
of lower animals. 

Imbedded in the under skin are many 
blood and lymph cells and nerves. In it 
are the ends of the organs of touch, the 
hair roots and countless sweat and seba¬ 
ceous glands. In addition it contains, in 
many places, smooth muscular fibres 
which are relaxed with increasing tem¬ 
perature and contracted by the influence 
of a lower temperature. 

26 


Bathing for Health 


The vigorous action of the muscles of 
the skin may be observed in the formation 
of gooseflesh. If the skin is exposed to 
the cold, the smooth muscles of the hair 
follicles contract, causing the latter to 
rise in small knots. The paling of the 
skin which accompanies this phenomenon 
is due to an evacuation of the superficial 
blood-vessels as a result of the muscular 
contractions. Increase of temperature re¬ 
laxes the skin muscles, and consequently 
leads to an expansion of all channels. 

Every person of medium height has 
about fifteen to seventeen square feet of 
skin. In the cutis there are about fifteen 
millions of small papillae, or mounds, 
which contain the ends of the nerves, as 
well as many blood-vessels. In addition 
there are over two million perspiratory 
and sebaceous glands which discharge at 
the skin surface. The fluid from these 
glands continually evaporates upon our 
27 


The Fountain of Youth 

body surface and cools us off. With an 
increase of blood circulation and a quick¬ 
ening of the metabolism, small drops are 
noticed at the exit of the sweat ducts— 
the “pores,” as they are called. These 
gradually flow together, and effect the 
cooling of the entire skin surface through 
an augmented evaporation. 

IF OUR PORES WERE STOPPED UP WE 
COULDN’T LIVE TWO HOURS 

Through the great “third lung” which 
we call the skin, more than two pounds 
of beauty- and health-destroying waste 
products are thrown off daily. This 
material, the debris or garbage of our 
organism, if partly retained, poisons the 
body, mind and soul; if entirely retained, 
it would kill as surely and quite as quickly 
as arsenic or any other poison. Witness 
the famous Russian boys who, as imper- 
28 


Bathing for Health 


sonators of angels, were covered with a 
thick coating of gold paint, and, with 
their pores thus stopped, became real 
angels in about two hours. 

THE FUNCTIONS OF THE SKIN 

ft' 

Within the fifteen to seventeen square 
feet of skin which covers us are intricate 
and marvelous circulatory systems, and 
through their millions of nerve endings, 
these systems are intimately connected 
with the central nervous system. By 
means of these complicated and sensitive 
systems, either direct or reflex relations 
are made with every organ, gland, mus¬ 
cle, or blood-vessel, in the body. 

Nearly every organ is in direct relation 
with the skin immediately over it, while 
many organs are also in reflex relation 
with quite remote portions of the skin. 
In other words, the tonic effect of water, 
29 


The Fountain of Youth 


its influence in dilating or constricting 
the blood-vessels, checking hemorrhage, 
stimulating the kidneys, deadening pain 
or producing sleep, is due to the intimate 
connection of the skin with the organs, 
nerves or blood-vessels having to do with 
these phenomena. Thus we are able to 
influence the whole body by the applica¬ 
tion of water to its surface. 

We see that the functions of the skin 
are manifold and mean a great deal to 
the organism. In fact, no organ of the 
body has to perform so many different 
functions as does the skin. 

First, it is a protection for the body, 
with its many organs and its infinitely 
numerous blood-vessels. It protects us 
against mechanic, thermic, electric and 
chemical injuries by virtue of its anatom¬ 
ic structure and its physiological charac¬ 
teristics. 

Next, it is a sense organ, the seat of our 

30 


Bathing for Health 

principal sense, that of feeling, from 
which all other senses have been devel¬ 
oped. 

Furthermore, it is a regulator of our 
temperature, which it maintains at 98.6 
degrees Fahrenheit. 

It is also an important excretory organ, 
and thus contributes to the regulation of 
the metabolism. Through the skin many 
noxious poisons are thrown off in dis¬ 
solved form. There is a constant inter¬ 
change of function between kidneys and 
skin. If the excretory function of the 
skin is reduced, the kidneys must not only 
excrete larger quantities of water, but 
also more poisonous substances, which ir¬ 
ritate their tissues. An active skin means 
great relief for the kidneys. 

The skin is after all a true mirror of 
our inner bodily condition, because it is 
closely connected with the work of each 
organ. The purity and health of our 
31 


The Fountain of Youth 

skin influences the functioning of all our 
organs. Activity of the skin protects the 
inner organs and facilitates their work. 
Inactivity of the skin leads to the over¬ 
loading of the inner organs with poison¬ 
ous matter and thereby causes premature 
aging and sickness. Vice versa, sick inner 
organs cause an overloading of the skin. 

TWENTY-EIGHT MILES OF TUBES 
IN THE SKIN 

In the skin there are twenty-eight miles 
of small canals, the exits of the perspira¬ 
tory and sebaceous glands. Through 
these canals the skin “breathes.” In fact, 
the skin breathes in a much higher degree 
than people realize, as is proven by the 
fact that human beings, whose bodies had 
been painted over three times with var¬ 
nish, died of suffocation. 

32 


Bathing for Health 


The physiologist Forster tells us that 
a frog whose lungs had been removed 
lived for a certain period, discharging 
carbonic acid through the skin and tak¬ 
ing up oxygen through the same medium. 
A frog evidently can breathe without 
lungs, its skin taking the place of these 
organs. In the same way our own skin 
co-operates with the lungs in furnishing 
oxygen to the blood, and if we only gave 
it a chance it would perform a larger 
share of this task than it does. 

Originally the skin was the only breath¬ 
ing organ. Later, as higher beings were 
evolved, the lungs were specialized for 
this function. 

THE NERVE NETWORK IN THE SKIN 

The nervous system of the skin is com¬ 
posed of an exceedingly fine and closely 
woven network of very sensitive nerves. 

33 


The Fountain of Youth 


In the form of countless small nerve ends 
they work through the fissures of the up¬ 
per skin, especially through those of the 
hand, the sole of the foot, tips of fingers 
and toes, of the lips and the tongue. 

Of course, this part of the nervous sys¬ 
tem is connected with the whole nervous 
system through both principal nerve 
centers, the brain and the spine. Thus 
stimulation of the nerves of the skin also 
affects, reflexly, the whole nervous system, 
whether favorably or unfavorably. 

From all of the foregoing we may 
rightfully draw the conclusion that the 
skin is the most favorable part of the 
body from which to influence all organs 
and tissues, and accomplish the best ther¬ 
apeutic results. It is the mirror of the 
whole inner body. It is a reservoir of 
almost unlimited capacity, into which 
can be diverted the excess of blood from 
the brain and the other parts. For pur- 
34 


Bathing for Health 


poses of excretion, the skin is hardly in¬ 
ferior to the bowels themselves. And 
hydropathic treatment does not decrease 
its efficiency, but leaves it more efficient 
than before. 


35 


CHAPTER III 


Bathing for Beauty 

npHERE is no side-stepping the propo¬ 
sition that to be beautiful we must 
first be healthy. So we must score one 
for the bath as a beautifier on the grounds 
that it inevitably tends to make us healthy. 

Before real cleanliness of the skin can 
be attained the water of the bath must be 
heated to a point where it will dissolve 
off the accumulated oil and the “matter 
out of place” that adheres to the oil film. 

And fear not to destroy the oil-secret¬ 
ing power of the skin by occasionally 
freeing it from this film. For the internal 
force that pushes sebaceous secretion and 
effete material up to the surface will con¬ 
tinue to push. 

In contradistinction to the cold tub, or 
36 


Bathing for Beauty 

shower, which imparts a tonic shock, 
warm and hot baths quiet and soothe. 
They relax the tension of muscles, nerves 
and blood-vessels. They help the skin to 
eliminate the accumulated fatigue poi¬ 
sons that depress vitality. In short, they 
tend to make us healthier—and, as a con¬ 
sequence, handsomer. 

Hot tub-baths, if too long continued, 
are debilitating. And anything that 
filches strength robs beauty. Yet, if one 
does not remain in the hot bath longer 
than two minutes at a time, one gets al¬ 
most as much stimulation, followed by 
quite as good a reaction, as one would 
from a cold bath. 

RINSE THE SOAP OFF THOROUGHLY 

The cleansing bath should be from 90 
to 95 degrees Fahrenheit. This should be 
followed by a colder splash, or a shower, 
37 


The Fountain of Youth 

which drives the blood from the surface 
and closes the pores. Great care should 
be taken to insure the thorough rinsing 
off of the soap; for even the purest and 
blandest of soap is irritating if permitted 
to remain long in contact with a delicate 
skin, and merely wiping off a lather is not 
getting rid of all the soap—not by a con¬ 
siderable margin of failure. 

The towel should invariably be tem¬ 
pered to the skin. If one is blessed with 
a tough integument, a coarse crash towel 
may be used briskly. But if one happens 
to have a tender skin, the “crashness” of 
the towel will have to be modified. 

Many believe that the tepid bath, 
finally graduated to coolness by the sim¬ 
ple process of letting in cold water as 
the warm water runs out, is the best 
bath. 

Probably the best all-round average 
temperature for the bath is from 68 to 
38 


Bathing for Beauty 


72 degrees, although this varies with the 
individual reaction. It is best, to insure 
accuracy, that the temperature be taken 
with a thermometer, as the old nurse’s 
principle of determining the eternal fit¬ 
ness of things is eminently unsatisfactory. 
Her practice, you remember, was to put 
the baby in the bath; if he turned blue, 
she knew the water was too cold; if he 
turned red, she was equally certain that 
it was too hot. 

Delicate children and women might 
react most unfavorably to a bath the tem¬ 
perature of which is gauged in this rule- 
of-thumb manner, and even the most 
robust might benefit by a greater degree 
of accuracy. 

Once a day is about the correct amount 
of indulgence for the average bather. In 
the summer an extra cold tub might be 
taken with benefit. But if the skin feels 
dry, scaly, or itchy, after the bath, it 
39 


The Fountain of Youth 


might be well to cut down its frequency 
—especially during cold weather and the 
season of “winter itch.” 


VIRTUES OF THE SEA-BATH 

Sea-bathing is one of the greatest and 
most effective of all healthiflers and beau- 
tifiers. Partly from the salt contained in 
the water, and partly from the “slap” of 
the surf, it is splendidly stimulating to 
the skin nerves, and through them to the 
entire system, particularly if the skin can 
tolerate dispensing with a fresh-water 
shower at the conclusion of the dip. 

The same objections, however, apply 
to its abuse by emaciated, weak, or anemic 
individuals as to the morning cold tub, 
and for the same reason—only consider¬ 
ably more so. 

Rain water is the best and purest and 
softest water obtainable, and had those 
40 


Bathing for Beauty 


famous ladies of history who bathed in 
asses’ milk, wine, strawberry or elder- 
flower juice, chickweed, and various other 
delectable products, only chosen this 
humble bathing medium, they would 
have gotten better results in the way of 
cleanliness and beauty than from their 
bizarre and expensive ablutions. 


BEST WAY TO SOFTEN HARD WATER 

“Hard water”—which is water carry¬ 
ing an excess of lime or other minerals— 
is sometimes most irritating, especially to 
delicate skins. A wineglassful of com¬ 
mon vinegar will neutralize the excessive 
alkalinity and thereby “soften” the water, 
so that it becomes a better dirt solvent; 
which treatment also overcomes the ten¬ 
dency towards irritation. 

Exercise before and after bathing aids 
41 


The Fountain of Youth 


in its good effects, for it opens the pores 
and facilitates the expulsion of waste 
products. After the bath it favors the 
nutrition of the skin by increasing the 
reaction of blood to the surface. 

While there are some skin diseases that 
are aggravated by bathing, most erup¬ 
tions—as pimples, pustules, scales and 
crusts—are greatly benefited by hot or 
warm baths—particularly if some mild 
antiseptic is added. 

Sometimes a half-pound of starch, 
stirred into the bath water, has an excel¬ 
lent effect upon itching and eruptions, 
and everyone who has ever had them 
knows that hives are greatly relieved by 
immersion in salt water. 

TO OVERCOME EXCESSIVE PERSPIRATION 

For those who perspire too freely, half 
a cupful of toilet ammonia and a little 
42 


Bathing for Beauty 

formaldehyde are most helpful, and fre¬ 
quently curative. 

A wineglassful of toilet ammonia fre¬ 
quently has an excellent cleansing and 
whitening effect, and is usually very well 
borne by even the most delicate skin. Or 
a little tincture of benzoin may be equally 
acceptable. 

Many famous beauties, instead of 
using soap, use almond meal poured into 
the wet hands, thereby forming a paste 
which is rubbed on the hands and face 
as a soap substitute. It seems to agree 
with them, and certainly is bland and 
non-irritating, being free from alkali. 

Oatmeal, or bran—either stirred into 
the water, or sewn in a bag, which is 
soaked in the water—often has a soothing 
and softening effect upon roughened or 
stained skins. 

Upon the choice of a soap depends 
much of the success of bathing for beauty. 

43 


The Fountain of Youth 


If a soap has an excess of alkali—and 
most of them have—this alkali promptly 
unites with the delicate fatty substances 
secreted for the protection of the skin, 
and removes it, leaving the skin surface 
dry and harsh. Cracks then form in the 
skin, and dirt works into them, frequently 
requiring the use of even stronger soap 
to eradicate it. This still further deepens 
the cracks, and so it goes, from bad to 
worse. 

THE BEST TOILET SOAP 

Don’t economize on toilet soap. Adopt 
the principle that even the best is not 
quite good enough, although it will have 
to do until a better is produced. 

If the skin is unduly sensitive to soap, 
it might be well to shave a little of the 
least irritating toilet soap one can secure, 
and let it dissolve in the bath water ten 
or fifteen minutes before the ablution. 

44 


Bathing for Beauty 


Thus any irritant which the soap might 
contain would be so diluted and diffused 
that only a very small amount of it at a 
time could touch the skin. 

Stiff scrubbing brushes, coarse sponges, 
and other implements for separating dirt 
and the surface to which it adheres by 
the Scotch system of navigation—“main 
strength and awkwardness”—should be 
used only for manicuring the kitchen 
floor, or polishing off the picture frames. 
And even then they should not be used 
too recklessly. To employ them on the 
delicate human skin is sure evidence that 
one hates oneself. 

To use the dry heat of the Turkish 
bath, or the moist heat of the Russian 
bath, for increasing the total stock of 
beauty is love’s labor lost. Indeed, unless 
they cause free and profuse perspiration, 
these baths should be avoided—especially 
if followed by a headache or any feeling 
45 


The Fountain of Youth 


of discomfort. They are, at best, but a 
lazy way of taking physical exercise, and 
we would be just as well off if we’d let 
the Russians and the Turks have our share 
of them—as well as their own. 

Bathing is a veritable Pandora’s box of 
blessings, for it is a goodly segment of a 
beneficent circle. Baths favor health, 
health creates beauty, beauty invites hap¬ 
piness, and happiness in turn develops 
more beauty. If you haven’t already got 
the bath habit, get it. 


46 


CHAPTER IV 


Baths as “Big Medicine” 

TN this chapter I want to give you 
briefly some of the most effective of 
the hydrotherapeutic measures—in other 
words, the various forms of water treat¬ 
ment generally used by the great spe¬ 
cialists. 

Let us take the treatment of fevers first, 
as most important. The usual method of 
employing the bath in fevers, and the one 
attended with the least shock, is to im¬ 
merse the patient in a full tub at a tem¬ 
perature of ninety degrees, and then run 
cold water in and hot water out for 
twenty minutes, or less, until the bath 
temperature is reduced to sixty-five or 
even sixty degrees. In this, way the tem¬ 
perature of the patient may frequently be 
47 


The Fountain of Youth 

brought down—for a time—three or four 
degrees. 

Naturally, much comfort is afforded 
by this reduction in temperature, to say 
nothing of the conservation of energy, 
the relief of delirium, promotion of skin 
and kidney activity, and possibly the de¬ 
struction of myriads of bacteria in the 
blood stream, which cannot survive the 
exposure to this low temperature. 

Cold bathing is of great value in dis¬ 
eases other than fever. In nervous affec¬ 
tions, especially such conditions as hys¬ 
teria, hystero-epilepsy (major hysteria), 
or St. Vitus’ dance, a cold tub is a regular 
ne plus ultra of a curative agent—espe¬ 
cially when followed by a brisk’ blood¬ 
whipping rub with a coarse towel. 

Rickets and malnutrition in children 
are frequently relieved by short cold 
baths. Much care, however, must be 
taken here, as in other enfeebled condi- 
48 


Baths as “Big Medicine” 

tions. For the shock of cold puts a strain 
upon the heart that may occasionally pro¬ 
duce dilatation of that organ. 

HOT BATHS IN SUPPRESSED MENSTRUATION 
AND FOR PAIN RELIEF 

Hot baths are powerful stimulants to 
the circulatory system, and have an excel¬ 
lent effect in suppressed menstruation, as 
well as in hemorrhoids. They are espe¬ 
cially valuable in the relief of swollen 
joints, gout, stiffness and soreness from 
any cause, or in the thickenings that some¬ 
times occur as a result of wounds or in¬ 
juries. Also, the hot bath will frequently 
cut short the cold stage in chills and 
fevers. 

If a hot foot-bath be given as a means 
of stimulating a sweat, it is well to cover 
the patient with a blanket, and give copi¬ 
ous quantities of hot water or hot lemon- 
49 


The Fountain of Youth 

ade. A cold compress should be applied 
about the head or neck to prevent con¬ 
gestion in the blood-vessels of the head. 

Fomentations applied to the spine will 
assist the action of the foot-bath, and after 
sweating is well established it may usually 
be continued by placing the patient in 
bed and carefully wrapping him in blan¬ 
kets. 

The treatment should be made thor¬ 
ough enough to accomplish its purpose, 
which is to draw the blood from the great 
abdominal vessels, and stimulate it to cir¬ 
culate freely. 

It may be well to emphasize the need 
of protection from drafts and sudden 
chillings after this foot-bath. This may 
be met by putting the patient to bed im¬ 
mediately, and keeping him there until 
the storm blows over. 

In rheumatic affections—particularly 
muscular rheumatism, neuralgia, sciatica 
50 


Baths as “Big Medicine” 

and lumbago — protracted hot baths, 
good, long “soaks” of half an hour or an 
hour, repeated several times daily, have 
given excellent results. 

In Bright’s disease warm baths, by 
keeping the pores thoroughly open and 
thereby relieving the work of elimination 
done by the kidneys, are almost indis¬ 
pensable. And this is true also of dia¬ 
betes, although here, in addition, the reg¬ 
ulation of the diet is of great importance. 

BREAKING UP COLDS 

One homely and generally known use 
for baths, either alone or in combination 
with other measures, is in conditions re¬ 
sulting from exposure. For instance, in 
breaking up an incipient “cold”—which, 
by the way, is generally due to lowered 
vitality, plus a defect in the circulation 
caused by local chilling and possibly one 
5 ) 


The Fountain of Youth 

or more varieties of “bug”—nothing is 
more effective than a brisk cathartic, a 
good, liberal flushing of the system with 
water, either straight or in the form 
of hot lemonade, and a hot bath. This 
should be taken hot enough and long 
enough to equalize the circulation and 
stimulate the flow of stagnant surface 
blood back to the furnace where its im¬ 
purities are burnt up—the lungs. 

This bath is, of course, best taken im¬ 
mediately before bedtime, and if a little 
gentle sweating—Nature’s way of giving 
us a bath—can be induced, so much the 
better. 

HOT WATER FOR DISEASES OF THE SKIN 

In diseases of the skin warm baths are 
of great service. 

In acne, and other skin eruptions which 
are actually caused by a lack of cleanli- 

52 


Baths as “Big Medicine” 

ness, a liberal application of warm water, 
soap and elbow grease will work mir¬ 
acles. 

In the treatment of many cases of scaly 
and itching diseases, Prof. Hebra, of 
Vienna, one of the world’s greatest au¬ 
thorities on skin diseases, prescribed daily 
two-hour immersions in a warm bath, 
which, after a period, he increased to two 
days at a time, and then, in a number of 
cases* even to periods of from one to nine 
months. Dr. Hebra claims that the pa¬ 
tients derive great benefit from this long- 
period bathing, and that it is no trouble 
for them to eat, drink or sleep in these 
baths. And also that nutrition, respira¬ 
tion and skin excretion go on just as 
though they were living in an atmospheric 
instead of an aquatic medium. 

And yet, in our enthusiasm for baths as 
“big medicine,” we must not forget their 
limitations. In psoriasis, a thorough im- 
53 


The Fountain of Youth 


mersion in hot water effects a removal of 
the scales from the body, but it has no 
permanent curative influence upon the 
disease. In fact, we do not definitely 
know anything that has, except sun baths, 
or the mercury vapor sun lamps. 

In many skin diseases, too, the worst 
thing we could possibly do to the patients 
is to bathe them. Prof. Hebra, although 
he has broken the record for subjecting 
patients to the extensive and continuous 
use of warm water, says that certain erup¬ 
tions are so easily aggravated by water 
that even a wetting in a rain has, in a sus¬ 
ceptible subject, been known to bring 
about an exacerbation of the diseased con¬ 
dition. But this is a technical medical 
question, and is hardly within the scope 
of this inquiry. 


54 


CHAPTER V 


The History of Hydrotherapy 

JF the medical profession is ever called 
upon to answer in a High Court for 
its Sins of Omission, one of the first ques¬ 
tions put to it will be: “Why have you, 
for almost twenty centuries, neglected to 
use water as a therapeutic agent?” 

It seems almost incredible that the rich 
experience of the ancients concerning 
the health-giving properties of the bath 
should, until the latter half of the nine¬ 
teenth century, have been so generally 
ignored. The Dark Ages, so called be¬ 
cause of the mentally benighted condition 
of the race at that time, apparently af¬ 
fected the medical profession more viru¬ 
lently than any other. Doctors practiced 
55 


The Fountain of Youth 

astrology and pseudo-magic rather than 
medicine, and used very little water them¬ 
selves, either internally or externally. In 
all these piled-up centuries, millions of 
human beings must have been permitted 
to die whose lives could have been pro¬ 
longed by a mere water-pack, or a prop¬ 
erly administered sponge-bath. 

Today we are beginning to recall what 
the old Greeks told us, and what common 
sense should never have permitted us to 
forget—that “cold water on the outside 
of a man is good for hot blood on the 
inside of the man.” 

The recognition of this and other vital 
facts is of very ancient origin. For the 
use of water in dealing with physical ills 
dates back to the Chinese era. Two thou¬ 
sand years before the time of Moses, the 
Chinese performed circumcisions at run¬ 
ning streams, or at the sea-coast, recog¬ 
nizing the haemostatic (hemorrhage- 
56 


The History of Hydrotherapy 

stopping) as well as the antiphlogistic 
(pain-reducing) effects of water. Many 
of the laws of the Talmud concerning the 
ritualistic use of water have their origin 
in knowledge gained from the Chinese. 
In the Bible we read frequently of the 
use of water among the Jewish tribes for 
its beneficial effect upon the health. 

ANTIQUITY OF THE USE OF WATER IN 
CURING DISEASE 

[As a matter of fact, the employment 
of water in the cure of disease is as old 
as thinking man. In the Rig Veda, writ¬ 
ten about 1500 B.C., we are told that 
“water cures the fever’s glow.” Hippo¬ 
crates extolled this remedial agent highly, 
and the invention of the shower-bath is 
credited by some to Asclepiades, a natu¬ 
ropath who flourished in Rome about a 
hundred years before Christ Nearly all 
57 


The Fountain of Youth 

the ancient medical authorities wrote 
appreciatively of the use of water in 
medicine, and employed it extensively, 
although more or less empirically. 

The first attempts at scientific hydro¬ 
therapy were made by Johann Sigismund 
Hahn in Silesia, at the beginning of the 
eighteenth century, but it was not until 
1702, when Dr. John Floyer, a physician 
of Lichfield, England, wrote a treatise, 
entitled “The History of Cold Bathing 
to the Ancient and Modern,” that water 
as a curative agent gained general recog¬ 
nition in the medical world. In 1797, an 
English medical authority, Dr. Currie, 
of Liverpool, wrote a treatise called, 
“Medical Reports on the Effects of 
Water, Both Warm and Cold, as a Rem¬ 
edy in Fevers and Other Diseases.” This 
work and that of Dr. Floyer were trans¬ 
lated into German, and in 1804 Professor 
Gertel, of Ansbach, republished them 
58 





Vincent Priessnitz, a German peasant and “native 
healer,” 1799-1852. Called the father of the natural or 
drugless healing method. 









The History of Hydrotherapy 

and quickened the popular movement 
toward the recognition of water as a 
therapeutic agent by his unqualified com¬ 
mendation of water-drinking as a remedy 
for all diseases. 

THE FATHER OF HYDROTHERAPY 

Vincenz Priessnitz, however, a farmer 
of Graefenberg, in Austrian Silesia, is 
looked upon as the real father of modern 
hydrotherapy. The fame of Priessnitz 
drew students of all nationalities to Graef¬ 
enberg, as well as patients suffering from 
ailments that resisted the usual forms of 
medical treatment. Later the German 
priest, Sebastian Kneipp (1822-1897), 
took up this method of healing, and his 
efforts probably did more to popularize 
the “water cure,” as it was then called, 
than all other measures combined. 

The very success in Germany, France, 
England and America of the methods 
59 


The Fountain of Youth 


taught by Priessnitz and Kneipp resulted 
in the bitter condemnation of hydrother- 
apy by physicians of the older school. 
But it is noticeable that even the most 
skeptical of allopaths gradually adopted 
modified forms of Priessnitz’s methods. 
The Germans—Phreninger and Runge, 
Brand of Berlin, Raljen and Surgensen 
of Kiel and Liebermeister of Basel—be¬ 
tween 1860 and 1870, employed the cool¬ 
ing bath in abdominal typhus, with re¬ 
sults which were striking enough, even 
after every deduction because of defective 
classification had been made, and led to 
its introduction in England by Dr. Wil¬ 
son Fox, whose able monograph on the 
subject commanded general acceptance. 

In the Franco-American War the cool¬ 
ing bath was largely employed in con¬ 
junction with quinine; and with the cold 
pack, is now recognized as invaluable in 
the treatment of all conditions compli- 
60 


The History of Hydrotherapy. 

cated with high temperature. Of course, 
cold baths do not cure fever. The cure 
is brought about by the development 
within the system of anti-bodies and 
toxins that kill the germs which cause 
the fever, and also by the increase in the 
number and in the “appetite” of the 
leucocytes or white corpuscles (the little 
policemen of the blood) which devour 
the noxious germs. But the baths do re¬ 
lieve the febrile symptoms, and help to 
bring about normal physiological func¬ 
tioning. 

THE WET-SHEET PACK 

The wet-sheet pack has of late been 
much used in fevers of all kinds, both in 
private and hospital practice; while the 
Turkish bath, introduced about sixty 
years ago by David Urquhart on his re¬ 
turn from the East, has become a public 
institution, and with the morning tub and 
61 


The Fountain of Youth 

general practice of water-drinking, is a 
noteworthy contribution <of hydropathy 
to public health. 

Late in the 80’s Winternitz of Vienna 
developed the theory of treating diseases 
through the nerve reactions from water. 
Winternitz claimed that these reactions 
were both direct anchreflex, the extent of 
their influence depending upon the tem¬ 
perature of the water and upon the force 
with which it was applied. Friction and 
massage increased the responses to the 
stimulation. The shower, spray, alter¬ 
nating hot and cold baths, with manipu¬ 
lations and massage, held precedence 
over the cold pack and the prolonged 
bath. Winternitz practically abandoned 
the internal use of water, and depended 
upon the stimulation produced by the 
external use to obtain his results. 

Guenther, a student of Winternitz, es¬ 
tablished his “Bad-Anstalt” in Berlin in 
62 


The History of Hydrotherapy 

1890. He followed most of Winternitz’s 
theories, but confined himself largely to 
the correction of kidney lesions. 

Baruch, also a student of Winternitz, 
introduced hydrotherapy in America. It 
was coldly received, however, not being 
understood by American physicians. As 
time went on, however, it was occasion¬ 
ally practiced by them, and in later years 
it was frequently used by Osier, Pitzga, 
Oppenheimer and others among the most 
eminent internists. 

The use of water as a curative agent 
is developing rapidly in America—not 
so much among the regular or old-school 
physicians, as among those physicians and 
practitioners who have adopted modern 
views. 

It has met with great favor among the 
scores of thousands of intelligent people 
who realize the absurdity of depending 
upon medicines. And before many years 
63 


The Fountain of Youth 


It will be established as one of the most 
important of all the natural methods of 
relieving pain,‘curing disease and length¬ 
ening life. 


CHAPTER VI 


How the Blood is Stimulated by 
Hot Water 

TT7HAT physical and chemical effect 
has a hot bath on the human or- 
ganism? 

1. Man’s body temperature is 98.6 de¬ 
grees Fahrenheit. If the bath water is 
110 degrees, logically the warmth of the 
body is increased. Now warmth is that 
special form of energy which the body ab¬ 
sorbs most easily. Consequently the or¬ 
ganism not only conserves energy, but also 
stores it up in considerable quantities in 
nerves and other tissues and body fluids. 

2. According to a physical law a con¬ 
stant exchange takes place between two 
different salt solutions, since one fluid de¬ 
livers salts to the other until both fluids 

65 


The Fountain of Youth 

are equally satisfied. This event takes 
place through any membrane separating 
the fluids, also through the human skin. 
The same happens with gases and all 
substances soluble in water. And hot 
water absorbs more substances than does 
cold water. 

The human skin is especially full of 
water. This fluid is very salty, which 
everybody knows who has ever tasted per¬ 
spiration. In it all substances which are 
destined for final excretion from the or¬ 
ganism are dissolved, awaiting a chance 
to be voided with the perspiration. 

HOW THE HOT BATH INCREASES OSMOSIS 

The hot bath causes an osmotic tension 
between the skin fluid, which is saturated 
with salts and other substances, and the 
saltless clean water. The result of this 
tension is the exchange of the soluble sub- 
66 


Effect of Hot Water on Blood 


stances of the skin fluid with the water. 
The cleaner and the greater the quantity 
of water and the higher the temperature, 
the greater is also the osmotic pressure 
and the faster and more intensive the fluid 
exchange. 

The hot water bath has a cleaning, dis¬ 
solving and absorbing effect for all mat¬ 
ters soluble in water. 

3. Warmth expands all bodies, cold 
contracts them. This teaches us the enor¬ 
mous importance of the hot bath on skin 
activity, and consequently on the organic 
activity of the body in general. The mil¬ 
lions of pores are wide open because 
the high temperature expands the skin. 
Therefore, the hot water can easily ap¬ 
proach the main opening of the stored 
sebaceous and waste matters, and dissolve 
and remove them. 

Cold water, however, contracts the 
pores still more, and cannot reach the 
67 


The Fountain of Youth 


substances which need to be removed, let 
alone dissolve them. The warmth of the 
water expands, furthermore, all blood 
and lymph vessels of the skin, and pro¬ 
duces a better circulation and an accelera¬ 
tion of metabolism. The hot bath changes 
the distribution of the blood in the body, 
for the inner organs deliver blood to the 
skin to a great extent, the blood actually 
flowing to it from all parts and increas¬ 
ing the blood pressure in the body sur¬ 
face. The blood-vessels of the inner body 
contract, because of their diminished con¬ 
tent, and the blood pressure decreases, 
although the heart beats more strongly. 

A cold bath has the reverse effect. The 
blood pressure of the skin sinks, that of 
the inner body increases, and the heart 
movement becomes slower. In a cold 
bath the amount of the red blood cor¬ 
puscles increases at the beginning, but 
quickly decreases to normal after the bath. 

68 


I 


Effect of Hot Water on Blood 

During the hot bath the red blood cor¬ 
puscles decrease temporarily, to increase 
afterwards. 

It can readily be seen from these facts 
that baths have a pronounced stimulating 
effect on the blood* and that their use pro¬ 
foundly influences, not only its nutrition 
and purification, but also its pressure— 
whether abnormally low or abnormally 
high. 

Other effects, too, the water may have, 
which we do not now understand. We 
are so largely aqueous in our physical 
makeup—being composed of sixty-six per 
cent of water, which enters into every 
tissue, even to the bones and hair—that 
possibly vibrational and chemical influ¬ 
ences may also enter into and help ex¬ 
plain the splendid results of water thera¬ 
peutics. 


69 


CHAPTER VII 


Wholesome Water vs. Dangerous 
Drugs 

/ T A HE thing that is capable of doing 
good is often equally capable of do¬ 
ing harm. To what extent and under 
what circumstances a drug is capable of 
doing good or harm are much mooted 
questions. When we add up the benefits 
and compare them with the ill-effects, the 
latter will usually outweigh the former. 

For example, drugs do not affect every¬ 
body in the same way. Some people will 
have a severe itching rash from minute 
doses of quinine. Others are salivated 
by a grain of calomel. Some die from 
moderate inhalations of ether or chloro¬ 
form. Some collapse from the depress¬ 
ing effects of coal-tar products. 

70 


Water vs. Drugs 


A moderate dose of castor oil has been 
known to bring on a marked diarrhea, 
with cramps and resulting colitis. Such 
household remedies as baking soda have 
excited an acute nephritis (inflammation 
of the kidneys). Soda bicarbonate taken 
to relieve the distress of excessive acidity 
of the stomach ultimately increases the 
flow of hydrochloric acid in this organ. 
It is well known that most purgatives 
result in increased constipation. Stimu¬ 
lants react as depressants. Depressants 
react as stimulants. Narcotics increase 
the susceptibility to the very pain they 
are given to deaden. 

The very medicine that checks the dis¬ 
ease or modifies its severity, retards the 
processes of convalescence. Tonics are 
like the whip to a tired horse; that is, 
they compel a weakened organism to do 
increased work, which, ultimately, must 
still further weaken it. 

71 


The Fountain of Youth 

The same remedy will not act on the 
same patient in the same way at different 
stages of the disease or in different attacks 
of the same disease. 

WHY THEY MUST BE FRESH 

“Fresh Drugs Used Here.” This sign 
is frequently seen in the apothecaries’ 
shops. Why? Do drugs vary in quality 
as in the degree of their freshness? Of 
course they do. Every text-book on thera¬ 
peutics says emphatically that certain 
drugs must be fresh, or freshly made. If 
the infusion of digitalis, for example, is 
old enough to break down certain of its 
toxic resins, it will produce violent nau¬ 
sea and vomiting. 

Many a victim of a sprained joint has 
been tortured by the painting of the parts 
with an old tincture of iodine, while a 
freshly made tincture would have caused 

72 


Water vs. Drugs 


little discomfort. Tinctures and fluid 
extracts are largely composed of alcohol, 
which readily evaporates, thus concen¬ 
trating the amount and strength of the 
drug in the decoction and increasing its 
activity and power. Even the druggists 
are alert to the dangers of the drugs they 
dispense, as the slightest carelessness on 
their part may result in the gravest dan¬ 
ger to the person taking the medicines 
they compound. 

Rheumatisms that have been treated 
by salicylates, the standard remedy for 
this disease, quite frequently are compli¬ 
cated by grave disturbances, in the func¬ 
tions of the stomach, from the effect of 
the drugs on this organ. Coal-tar prod¬ 
ucts usually produce a depleted haemo¬ 
globin of the blood. Quinine tends to 
bring about extreme nervousness or ten¬ 
sion of the blood-vessels. Morphia of¬ 
ten causes mental depression. Ammonia 
73 


The Fountain of Youth 

salts will lessen the excretion of urea, and 
produce obesity and anemia. Practically 
every drug has its objectionable and dan¬ 
gerous features 

HOW NATURE ACCOMMODATES HERSELF 
TO POISONS 

Nature always tends to accommodate 
herself to constant conditions. It is the 
exceptional that upsets her equilibrium. 
The young lad will be deathly sick from 
his first pipe of tobacco, but with con¬ 
stant use of the weed may develop into 
a human smoke-stack, suffering little dis¬ 
comfort from the effects of the poison. 
In the same way drugs taken constantly 
become ineffective. 

The new-born infant not infrequently 
suffers from coryza, or cold in the head, 
from its first bath, but in a short time will 
tolerate prolonged bathing with no ill 
74 


Water vs. Drugs 


effects. Thus from our own early in¬ 
fancy we become accustomed to water, 
internally and externally. 

Water, unlike drugs, is a substance 
found normally in all the tissues and 
fluids of the body. Consequently its 
action upon the organism must be in 
harmony with its normal functioning 
and growth, and free from the dangers 
associated with drugs. The only pos¬ 
sibility of injury from its use lies in 
unsuitable temperatures. With some 
knowledge on this point, even the inex¬ 
perienced, if they are well-balanced and 
careful, may undertake the administra¬ 
tion of hydrotherapy with safety. 


75 


CHAPTER VIII 


The Internal Use of Water 

VJT7ATER has a number of important 
functions in the alimentary canal. 
It is a food, a lubricant and a solvent. 
It is also a diluent, and is capable of ex¬ 
ercising local and remote physical and 
physiological influences. The use of 
water as a food needs only passing men¬ 
tion; the same may also be said of its 
function as a solvent and diluent. We 
are going to speak here of uses that are 
less familiar. 

Water in the stomach and intestines 
varies in its action according to its spe¬ 
cific gravity, as well as its degree of heat 
and cold. Warm water drunk freely 
upon rising, dilutes the acid resulting 
76 


The Internal Use of Water 


from fermentation in the stomach, dif¬ 
fuses the bacteria in the stomach con¬ 
tents, and produces a mild osmotic drain¬ 
ing of the blood-vessels of the organ. It 
has no stimulating effect upon the mus¬ 
cular activity or the membranes of the 
stomach. The drinking of warm water 
upon arising in the morning, therefore, 
should always be accompanied by effi¬ 
cient masssage of the abdominal organs 
to supply stimulation to the muscular 
coating and nerves of the stomach and 
intestines. 

This massage is very necessary, for a 
prolonged exposure of the membranes of 
the stomach to water is likely to produce 
an excess of osmosis, with lessened activ¬ 
ity of the gastric glands. It should be 
continued until the gurgling sound indi¬ 
cates that the water is being expelled into 
the intestine. 

In the small intestine the action of 
77 


The Fountain of Youth 

warm water is identical with its action in 
the stomach—that is, solvent, diluent and 
osmotic. If accompanied by massage, 
the drinking of warm water will prob¬ 
ably be followed by activity in the gall¬ 
bladder. Thus we will have the addi¬ 
tional benefit of a copious discharge of 
bile into the intestinal contents. 

COLD WATER IN THE ALIMENTARY CANAL 

Because of its lack of stimulating 
power to the muscular coats of the diges¬ 
tive canal, the tonic effect of warm water 
is far inferior to that of cold water. 

By softening the stool, lubricating the 
bowel and increasing the fluidity of its 
contents, warm water drunk on an empty 
stomach in the morning has a moderate 
laxative effect, but even in advanced ul¬ 
ceration, accompanied by hemorrhage, 
the use of cold water is so superior to that 
78 


The Internal Use of Water 

of warm water that I have practically 
abandoned the use of the latter for the 
morning draught. 

The sudden introduction of large 
quantities of cold water into the stomach 
is directly stimulating to the peripheral 
(surface) nerves in the stomach mem¬ 
brane. Muscular activity results and 
also an effort on the part of Nature to 
distribute this cold over a greater area, 
to enable the organism to meet its shock. 
This latter fact means a fairly rapid ex¬ 
pulsion of the water into the small in¬ 
testine. 

Again we have reflex congestion of 
the mucous membrane of the stomach 
to overcome the effects of cold, which 
affords increased opportunity for osmotic 
action, while rapid expulsion into the in¬ 
testine means an efficient cleansing of the 
stomach. 

The action of cold water on the small 
79 


The Fountain of Youth 


intestine is identical with its action in the 
stomach, with this exception, that as the 
heat of the stomach has moderated the 
temperature of the water, the effective¬ 
ness is proportionately moderated. 

Drink from six to ten glasses of water 
every day—as a duty you owe yourself 
in the preservation of health. It will 
profit you more than any other single 
hygienic measure. 


80 


CHAPTER IX 


The Intestinal Bath and the 
Purification of the Inner Body 

T HAVE said that the first condition 
for health, youth and beauty is clean¬ 
liness; not only the cleanliness of face and 
hands, but of the entire body, outside and 
inside. One can picture every animal 
organism as a thickly walled, porous cyl¬ 
inder, open at either end, and constantly 
connected with the atmosphere and acces¬ 
sible and subject to all its influences. The 
outside of the wall corresponds with the 
outside of the body, with its covering of 
skin. 

The inside of the wall corresponds with 
the digestive tract—the mouth, gullet, 
stomach and intestine—that is, the inte- 
81 


The Fountain of Youth 

rior canal lined with mucous membrane, 
into which run the secretory ducts of the 
various digestive organs. 

The massive part of the wall, situated 
between these surfaces,, consists of a bony 
framework supporting the muscular sys¬ 
tem and containing nearly all our mani¬ 
fold organs. It is run through by count¬ 
less canals and nerves; maintaining a 
constant connection between the digestive 
tract and the general system. 

In order to keep the organism in good 
condition, as well as to provide for that 
constant renewal of all its single organs 
which preserves youth, elasticity and en¬ 
ergy, a constant communication of both 
surfaces through the numerous canal sys¬ 
tems is absolutely necessary; lessened ac¬ 
tivity through the least important connec¬ 
tion will cause stagnation—consequently 
leading to abnormality of the life pro¬ 
cesses. 


82 


The Intestinal Bath 


We all know the value of purifying 
baths for the outer body, for the cleansing 
of the main pores, stuffed up with dirt. 
We know the revival of the bodily and 
mental powers following this cleansing 
bath. But why is the purification of the 
inner surface of the body so often ne¬ 
glected? 

KEEP THE MOUTH CLEAN ALSO 

The gates to the inner surfaces of the 
organism are the mouth and the rectum; 
if they are not clean, uncleanliness will 
spread over the whole body. Therefore 
we should thoroughly cleanse our mouth 
with warm water at least twice daily, in 
the morning during the usual morning 
toilet, and in the evening before retiring, 
adding to the water used a few grains of 
permanganate of potash or a little hydro¬ 
gen dioxide. These may be obtained at 
any drug store. 


83 


The Fountain of Youth 

We should also remove food particles 
after each meal with a toothpick made 
of wood or horn, or with dental floss. 

Neglect of mouth or teeth is soon no¬ 
ticeable through a disagreeable breath. 
The utmost care of the teeth, the removal 
of any that are decayed, etc., are such 
obvious necessities that I have .only to 
mention them. 

THE LAZY INTESTINE 

Laziness of the intestines is easily per¬ 
ceived. It is manifested in such symptoms 
as a nervous irritability, premature age, 
a pale withered complexion—especially 
around the eyes—gas formation, eructa¬ 
tion, etc. 

Through the sluggishness of the intes¬ 
tine and consequent tardiness of evacua¬ 
tion, decay and decomposition are devel¬ 
oped which are beyond description. Such 
abnormal conditions cause injury to the 
84 


The Intestinal Bath 

neighboring organs and to the whole 
body. 

TECHNIQUE OF RECTAL IRRIGATION 

Ordinarily water should not be intro¬ 
duced through the rectum with the pa¬ 
tient sitting erect or lying on the side. 
While sitting erect, you are trying to force 
the water uphill, and probably none of 
it will ever get past the sigmoid flexure. 
Furthermore, trying to force the water 
thus may cause dilatation of the rectum. 

When lying on the right side, the water 
is again called upon to force its way up¬ 
ward past the sigmoid flexure, which it 
will not be able to do. If on the left side, 
the descending colon may be irrigated, 
but the transverse colon is a perpendicular 
tube, and neither it nor the ascending 
colon will be likely to receive much, if 
any, water. Furthermore, the folds of 
85 


The Fountain of Youth 


the rectum and the sigmoid flexure act as 
cup-like valves while in these positions, 
to retard the passage of the water. 

THE KNEE-CHEST POSITION BEST 

By far the most satisfactory attitude 
in which to irrigate the colon is known 
as the knee-chest position. Use no other, 
if it is possible to employ this one. The 
patient kneels upon the bed, table or floor, 
and, keeping his hips high in the air, 
brings his head and chest down as low 
as possible, resting them upon a thin 
cushion, if desired. Persons in fairly 
good health may take this enema kneel¬ 
ing upon a rug on the bathroom floor, 
conveniently close to the toilet. 

This position is easily assumed by any 
normal person. It causes the cups of the 
bowel to fall towards the upper gut, 
thereby affording free entrance of the 


The Intestinal Bath 


water to the upper colon, and also allows 
intestinal air or gas to escape, thus mak¬ 
ing it easier to retain the full enema. The 
water flows readily by gravity into the 
descending and transverse colon, and on 
reassuming an erect position, a portion of 
the water in the transverse will flow by 
gravity into the ascending colon, and to 
the caecum. As a matter of fact* the water 
will be pushed into the ascending colon 
anyhow, if enough of it be used, through 
its property of seeking its level. 

In the knee-chest position, from four to 
six pints of water may be injected safely 
and without inconvenience; though when 
an enema is being taken daily or oftener 
during illness, four pints will be enough, 
as a rule. The filling of the colon is 
highly desirable, if it is to be thoroughly 
cleansed. 

Do not use soapsuds, soda, salt or any 
other medium in the water with which 
87 


The Fountain of Youth 

you irrigate the colon, except upon spe¬ 
cial advice for certain conditions. They 
are usually unnecessary, and if used in¬ 
discriminately, may cause irritation. Ap¬ 
ply a little vaseline or olive oil to the ball 
of the hard rubber rectal tube, so that it 
may be inserted easily. First let a little 
of the water run out of the tube to expel 
the air in it, and also to bring it to the 
proper temperature. 

If there is an impaction of fecal mat¬ 
ter in the lower bowel when irrigation 
is attempted, this should be evacuated be¬ 
fore proceeding with the higher irriga¬ 
tion. A small amount of water will usu¬ 
ally help expel this hard impaction. If 
there is a slight griping or nausea, or if 
the water comes too rapidly from the 
syringe, stop the flow for a moment with 
the clip cut-off, or by pinching the tube 
between finger and thumb. As the water 
finds its way into the upper portions of 
88 


The Intestinal Bath 

the bowel, the uneasiness will be allayed. 
Then allow more water to enter. Remain 
in the crouching position for a few mo¬ 
ments after receiving the full quantity 
of water. 

If a patient is too weak to assume the 
knee-chest position, let him lie upon his 
back with his hips elevated about a foot 
higher than his head during the irriga¬ 
tion. This may be done by raising the 
foot of the cot or bed, or by slipping a 
long ironing-board under him, and prop¬ 
ping its end up on a chair-back or other 
support. If the patient feels an impulse 
to expel the water before a sufficient 
amount has been injected, he should make 
a strong effort to retain it while the flow 
of water is temporarily shut off, and an 
assistant should aid him by pressing a 
folded cloth against the anus until the 
impulse is controlled. 

Many persons take the colon irrigation 
89 


The Fountain of Youth 


with the water at about the temperature 
of the body—98 degrees. It is much pref¬ 
erable, however, to use cooler water— 
90 or 80 or even 70 degrees—for the same 
reasons that cold drinking water is much 
preferable. The condition of the patient 
will have not a little to do with deciding 
the exact temperature. Warm enemas are 
enervating to the colon, and soon lose their 
effect because of this. The walb of the 
colon may become relaxed and stretched, 
especially if large quantities of water are 
used. Cold water is free from these ob¬ 
jections, as it gives tone and life to the 
intestine by stimulating its muscles and 
nerves. In fever the cool enema is val¬ 
uable not only for cleansing purposes, but 
for reducing the temperature and stimu¬ 
lating the kidneys, liver and skin to more 
eliminative action. 


90 


CHAPTER X 


The New Blood-Washing Bath 

J NOW come to the consideration of 
one of the most remarkable discoveries 
in the modern treatment of disease. This 
is the new “blood-washing” bath, dis¬ 
covered by Mr. Christos Parasco, a young 
Greek-American. 

In this bath it would seem that disease 
itself is banished, healthful vigor restored, 
and years washed away. In fact, the ef¬ 
fect of the bath is almost like that which 
was sought for by the old Spaniard, 
Ponce de Leon, in his long and futile 
search for the Fountain of Youth. 

I know that this is so, because I have 
seen the wonderful results secured by Mr. 
Parasco himself among his friends and in 
his own family, and have had similar re- 
91 


The Fountain of Youth 

suits from the treatment in my own sani¬ 
tarium, and among my own patients. 

The discovery of this method, as in the 
case of many other remarkable discover¬ 
ies, was somewhat in the nature of an 
accident. 

Mr. Parasco told me the story himself, 
one day last Spring. 

MR. PARASCO’S STORY 

“During the War,” Parasco told me, 
“I was drafted, but they rejected me be¬ 
cause I had hernia. I didn’t want to have 
an operation. I didn’t know what to do. 
One day I went to a gymnasium, for I 
am devoted to exercise. I stayed long 
under a hot shower because my side 
pained me. The heat felt good, and I 
remained for two hours. After that I 
noticed that the hernia felt better. So 
I came again the following day and spent 
92 


The New Blood-Washing Bath 


a whole afternoon under the shower. 
When I left, the hernia felt cured. It 
was cured. That was four years ago, and 
I have had no return of it since. The 
place where the hernia was, is strong. 

“All that made me think. I took other 
applications, eight hours at a time, with 
the water very hot, at a temperature of 
from 106 to 110 degrees. I experimented. 
I found that it was best to lie down, either 
on the floor under the shower, or on an 
air mattress, and let the water play upon 
various parts of the body in succession. 
Wherever it struck it drew the blood 
strongly to the surface, greatly stimulat¬ 
ing the circulation and the tissues of that 
part, while the perspiration streamed 
from the other portions which were not 
receiving the water. I found that the type 
of shower that throws very fine, needle¬ 
like streams through a perforated sheet 
of metal worked better than the sort that 
93 


The Fountain of Youth 

throws a coarser stream; and that it was 
necessary to gauge the force of the water 
£0 the point where the impact of it would 
be pleasant, and only slightly numbing 
to the skin. 

“To get the best results, the shower 
should be at a height of ten to fourteen 
feet. Satisfactory results, however, can 
be obtained if the shower is at the con¬ 
ventional height, as in most homes, of 
seven feet. One lets the water strike in 
turn on the neck and sides of the head, 
the arms, the sides, the chest, various 
parts of the back, the abdomen, the pel¬ 
vic region, the legs, and even the soles 
of the feet.” 

“Eight hours of that?” exclaimed I, 
incredulously. “I know a lot about the 
Water Cure. I’ve been administering it 
most of my life. I came to this country 
with a direct commission from Father 
Kneipp himself, but I have never struck 
94 



This shows how two showers may be used at the same time, 
though either one may be taken separately. For the top of 
the head, use cool water or only slightly warm, and continue 
only a minute or so, especially when starting treatment. To 
prevent ear trouble, plug the ears with cotton. For the face, 
sides and back of head a shower of several minutes may be 
taken. The feet should be showered from every angle. After 
passing to other parts and giving them each at least fifteen 
minutes of the bath, repeat the entire bath. 

95 
































The Fountain of Youth 

anything like this. It goes many steps 
beyond anything that has ever been done 
in hydrotherapy. Are you sure of your 
facts? Where did you get it? What’s 
your theory?” 

A PRACTICE FROM ANCIENT GREECE 

“They used to practice it to some 
extent at certain hot springs in ancient 
Greece,” replied Parasco. “But it 
wouldn’t be widely practicable without 
modern plumbing and instantaneous 
water heaters. It is different from other 
ways of using water, because of the time 
it takes. Eight hours under a shower! 
Yes, I know it sounds crazy; but try it; 
try it! 

“The eight hours will pass like eight 
minutes, with the soft hands of the water 
massaging you till you are all but asleep; 
and it doesn’t take strength from you; it 
96 


The New Blood-Washing Bath 

does not weaken. Instead, it makes you 
strong, and puts into you a sense of vigor 
and renewed strength I can’t describe. 
You must try it. 

“I have used it on my five brothers, and 
on others of my family. Our friends have 
tried it. It has ‘made them over.’ Those 
of them who are old it has made years 
younger, limbering up their muscles, tak¬ 
ing the stiffness from their joints, and 
restoring the full vigor and energy of 
mind and body which they had thought 
lost to them. To those who are young it 
has given the full measure of their 
strength. One man, having cleansed him¬ 
self in this bath, will work like two. They 
take the water, and they come out strong 
and happy; they lose their black looks 
and their dark moods. Nothing frightens 
them. They have an output of energy 
equal to any burden life can lay on them. 
And the sick? They become whole. I 
97 












The New Blood-Washing Bath 

tell you, for I know. For four years I 
have tried it I beg you to believe and 
to give it a test yourself.” 

At first I couldn’t believe it. Then, 
as I questioned him more particularly I 
began to feel that here was an idea which 
ought to be true, something that had about 
it an inherent logic, something that car¬ 
ried to a logical conclusion the very prin¬ 
ciples of the Water Cure which I have 
been teaching all my life, and which it 
had never occurred either to me or any¬ 
one else, not even to the wise old Father 
Kneipp, to apply to the limit. 

I considered the beginning of the whole 
Nature Cure movement; how in every in¬ 
stance it began humbly; how it came from 
visions of common sense vouchsafed to 
humble men. Isn’t that the way truth has 
always come into the world? Doesn’t it 
come, not through a cold process of 
reason, but by intuition or accident? 

99 


The Fountain of Youth 


f At any rate, I, as a teacher and healer of 
common people, would try this out. 

HOW I TESTED OUT THE NEW BLOOD¬ 
WASHING BATH 

And so I went down to my sanitorium 
in Butler, N. J., where I was sure I would 
have plenty of hot water; and there I 
rigged up such apparatus as suited my 
purpose, and I took the new blood-wash¬ 
ing bath. 

It is not important what your theory 
of the thing may be. What is important 
is the results. And I can vouch for those. 
I have had personal experience with prac¬ 
tically every form of Water Cure known 
to mankind; and I can say without quali¬ 
fication that there is nothing in any way 
comparable to this treatment. I am not 
exaggerating when I say that three of 
those eight-hour units which Parasco 
100 



From the top of the head to the base of the spine may be 
showered in this position, though the greatest effect will be 
secured upon the upper half of the trunk, the shoulders and 
neck. This is an excellent position if there is dizziness or 
other disturbance while lying face down. The latter posi¬ 
tion, however, will permit of greater relaxation, which is a 
valuable part of the treatment. 

101 


















The Fountain of Youth 

recommended made me, a man of sixty, 
feel twenty-five years younger* 

Of course the virtue of the treatment 
lies very largely in its duration. That 
is the point in which it differs most widely 
from the ordinary bath. And yet, even 
that is not the whole thing; for it is ap¬ 
parently possible to break up the eight- 
hour units into blocks of two hours each 
with perfectly good results—though of 
course it takes longer. 

I found it as Parasco said. There is no 
tedium under the shower. It is as en¬ 
thralling as an opium dream is said to be. 
You lie there, lulled by the water, your 
mind and body ineffably at ease; and all 
you ask is that you might be allowed to 
stay there and eat of the lotus forever. 
I didn’t want to quit when the eight hours 
were up, but desired to continue until 
I had experienced a complete return to 
youth. 


102 


Showing a very satisfactory way of taking shower to face, 
throat and chest, if an oblique shower can be secured. If one 
has the vertical shower the same treatment may be given by 
a position midway between lying on the back and sitting as 
shown. Do not continue bath long on the chest. A slueld 
may be worn over nose and eyes. 

103 




The Fountain of Youth 

As to just how and why this bath has 
such a remarkable effect I do not wish 
to be too positive at this time. 

THE THERAPEUTIC ACTION OF THE BATH 

I believe, however, that the aeration 
of the water as it passes through the air 
has something to do with it. I think the 
oxygen that is in the water when it strikes 
the skin plays a part the exact nature of 
which would have to be investigated be¬ 
fore one could attempt precisely to define 
it. I think it may combine with the effect 
of the water the effects of an air-bath. 
Again, there is a constant friction of the 
skin that results from that hour-by-hour 
impact of the water. I am confident that 
electrical reactions of a very mild but 
very real sort result from that. Here 
again, it is impossible to be definite till 
one has investigated. And this bath has 
^ot gotten that far. I can only state it 


The New Blood-Washing Bath 


in terms of my own experience and in the 
experience of others on whom I have 
tried it. 

You doubtless know that one of the re¬ 
sults of electrical treatments is that they 
cause or tend to cause a flow of blood to 
some given part of the body, thus stimu¬ 
lating the circulation. Well, no electrical 
treatment I know of can produce the de¬ 
gree of hyperaemia that results from this 
impact of hot water on localized areas of 
the body. You actually feel the blood 
rushing there. It seems to ebb and flow 
rhythmically. 

It flows to one part, and of course from 
other parts. It flows much more strongly 
than under normal conditions. It flows 
like the blood of a man who has exercised 
tremendously; and }^et you have not exer¬ 
cised. You are lying passive and letting 
the bloc^ work in this amazing fashion. 

105 


Not only all parts of the lower extremities, but the pelvis and 
abdomen may be showered in this and the preceding posi¬ 
tions. A support for the back will allow full relaxation. 

106 
















The New Blood-Washing Bath 

!A thing of that sort can’t go on without 
consequences of some kind. 

The effect of continued heat, particu¬ 
larly moist heat, upon the blood and the 
tissues is, of course, well known. Every 
family has a hot-water bag. Everybody 
has tried the hot foot-bath and hot drinks 
for conditions of chill and congestion. 
There is a big vein that runs from the 
sole of the foot right up into the abdom¬ 
inal region, for instance, and if there be 
any trouble in this region, why a hot foot¬ 
bath is one of the quickest ways of thin¬ 
ning the coagulated blood and other body 
fluids, and setting them flowing again. 
Death is nearly always directly caused by 
such coagulations of the body fluids, and 
heat is always one of the most effective 
means of combating the condition. 

In saying this, I am uttering perfectly 
orthodox teaching to which even medical 
men assent. It is something on which all 
107 


The Fountain of Youth 

schools of healing agree. Very good. 
Now suppose you have a type of bath 
which will do two things at once; mas¬ 
sage the body continuously, and heat it 
through and through, dissolving every 
possible coagulation, and every tempor¬ 
ary or chronic accumulation of toxins and 
foreign matter which for one reason or 
another has not been effectively elim¬ 
inated. Mind you, it doesn’t matter that 
the water does not actually penetrate the 
body through the skin—though possibly 
a good deal of it does. What matters is 
that the blood is gradually heated by cir¬ 
culating under the impact of that hot 
water, just as water is heated in a coil 
surrounded by hot coals. It produces for 
the time being an artificial fever, if you 
like; and fever is nature’s method of com¬ 
bating disease, overcoming the coagula¬ 
tion of sluggish body fluids, and running 
108 



109 


Probably the most satisfactory position for the majority of patients. For chest, abdo¬ 
men, pelvis, and lower extremities. One may turn to right and left and spray full length 

on each side. 











The Fountain of Youth 

things with the draft wide open till things 
are right again. 

Under this prolonged application of 
water, striking the body at all times with 
gentle force, and causing a hyperaemia 
where it strikes, now here for a period, 
and now there, you have a set of condi¬ 
tions such that a forced and yet perfectly 
gentle cleansing of the system takes place. 
You have the pores wide open* and the 
blood in a condition of activity absorbing 
from the tissues and the joints materials 
Which it ordinarily does not succeed in 
removing. It gets them completely. It 
is the difference between washing a soiled 
dish with lukewarm water and directing 
against it a powerful jet of hot water. I 
am positive—and I say this with a full 
understanding of the importance of my 
statement—that in no other form of bath 
is it possible to get this condition and to 
extend it over such a long period of time 
110 



While this position can, in many cases, be held for a short 
time only, it shows a superior method for reaching the ex¬ 
ternal pelvic organs, lower abdomen, inner surfaces of the 
thighs and the perineum—all closely associated with the sex¬ 
ual function and the health of the inner pelvic organs. After 
a few moments in this position the patient may assume ™ 
next position for a continuation to some extent of the same 

effect. 

Ill 




















The Fountain of Youth 

that it will result in an effective and com¬ 
plete cleansing of the body. 

Remember that this talk about the 
blood taking up foreign matter and then 
casting it out through the millions of 
pores of the skin is not just a mode of 
speech, or a vague idea. It happens. And 
if you can make it happen enough, then 
you will ultimately rid the system of what 
should not be there, and will enable it, 
if it has fallen behind in the race with the 
years, to catch up. Even if this method 
does no more than bring a man’s body to 
its maximum of youth at a given age in 
his biological development, it will have 
a right to be called a method of rejuve¬ 
nation. 

Moreover, it seems to me to be literally 
correct to say that it is a method by which 
the tissues and the blood are literally 
washed with water. The body is two- 
thirds water. The tissues and the blood 
112 



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113 
















The Fountain of Youth 


are mostly water. Here is a method by 
which that water takes up a lot of waste 
by dissolving it and then carries it out 
through the pores. If that isn’t washing 
with water, I don’t know what is. What 
happens is that the water from the shower 
causes the water in your blood and in 
your tissues to do things it would not 
otherwise do. It puts a nozzle on the 
hose, increases the pressure, and starts 
inside of you a process not unlike the 
hydraulic mining by which men wash 
minerals out of the earth. 

The further you let your mind follow 
out this thought, the more clearly inevi¬ 
table does it become. Every effective 
method of therapeutics tries to do in one 
way or another what this bath does. In 
every case it is a question of getting the 
blood to do its work. Exercise, with the 
sweating that accompanies it, is a method 



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115 






The Fountain of Youth 


of making the blood move and of wash¬ 
ing the tissues clean. 

But I know of nothing that does the 
work the way this bath does it, and I know 
of nothing that seems to me to hold out 
such promise of health and long life for 
the human race. 

REMARKABLE CASE OF DR. WARSAW 

I had a most interesting experience re¬ 
cently in Washington. I persuaded my 
friend, Dr. Alfrede Warsaw, to try the 
treatment in the baths of the Wardman 
Park Hotel, where the equipment is 
admirable and complete. Dr. Warsaw 
weighed two hundred pounds. He was 
not well. And for a year he had had a 
stubborn bronchial trouble which had 
prevented him from singing. This w T as 
a great trial to him, for he had long been 
an accomplished singer. 

116 



117 


For the hips, rectal region and thighs. Either this position or one in which the body is 
directly face downward, as in the next illustration, may be assumed. It is also advisable 
to change sides, continuing on each for from fifteen to thirty minutes. 



The Fountain of Youth 


Under my direction he took the new 
bath for eight hours. At the end of that 
time he had lost fourteen pounds, and his 
waist measure had reduced two inches. 
He felt so light on his feet that he could 
leap oyer the table on which he had been 
lying. And—this is the most wonderful 
part of it—he had his voice back. With 
my own ears I heard him render the 
“Prologue” from “Pagliacci” perfectly, 
with his voice as good as it had ever been. 
He is a man of seventy. He told me that 
that water had washed twenty-five years 
from his shoulders. I have no doubt that 
with a continuation of the baths, that very 
thing will happen. It did to me. 

One thing I want to do is to put out 
some suitable shower outfit at a low price 
that will be within reach of poor people. 
The shower should be constructed with 
some device that would enable the patient 
easily to control the flow and temperature 
118 


The New Blood-Washing Bath 


of the water from where he lies; since 
getting up and down for such a purpose 
would prevent the relaxation which is a 
needful feature of the treatment. But all 
these things are in the future. Six months 
should suffice to make of it something 
more than it is at present, a dream that 
seems too good to come true. 

Later I hope it will be possible to col¬ 
lect funds to establish great temples for 
this new Bath in communities all over 
the country where the poor can be bene¬ 
fited by free treatments, or by treatments 
at prices within their reach. 

A RATIONAL THEORY OF LONGEVITY 

I believe this is one of the most im¬ 
portant contributions that has ever been 
made toward the science of conserving 
human life and increasing human effi¬ 
ciency. 


119 


The Fountain of Youth 


If we can only increase the length of 
life by five years, there will be more than 
five million life years added to the lon¬ 
gevity of our population. Their increase 
in efficiency would mean millions of dol¬ 
lars added yearly to the wealth of the 
country. 

These facts may visualize to you some¬ 
thing of the enormous importance of this 
matter. 

Now, I want to explain further my 
theory of this therapeutic effect. 

My theory of longevity is based on the 
notion that it may be possible to restore 
to the cells of the human body a suffi¬ 
ciency of the water which is a prime 
necessity to their healthy existence. 

It must be remembered that Science has 
already gone on record to the effect that 
the ameba, a little animal composed of 
a single cell, and living in water, has prac¬ 
tical physical immortality; and that it can 
120 



121 


A properly adjusted shower will not cover quite the area covered here, but the illus¬ 
tration shows a satisfactory position for fairly prolonged applications to the entire pos¬ 
terior surface of the body. Do not spray long over the kidney region without 

shifting, returning later. 























The Fountain of Youth 

live, if not forever, at least indefinitely 
long. The human body is composed of 
cells which are not unlike that ameba, 
and each cell lives so long as it is bathed 
in a congenial fluid. The cell itself is 
mostly water, and it lives in a fluid which 
is almost entirely water. Biologists have 
found that living human cells will con¬ 
tinue to live indefinitely in a salt solution 
which is mostly water, and which has 
the essential characteristics of sea-water, 
where all life originated. 

If there be any essential difference be¬ 
tween the everliving ameba and the indi¬ 
vidual cells of the human body, it is that 
the ameba is constantly surrounded with 
unlimited, cleansing water, readily ab¬ 
sorbed and as readily ejected through the 
thin sac of connective tissue which is its 
skin; whereas the body cells do not have 
that advantage. They get some water, 
but not enough of it continuously to wash 
122 


The New Blood-Washing Bath 


away Old Age, by removing the accumu¬ 
lating sediments and leavings of Time. 

Can this condition under which the 
cells of the human body have their life 
be changed? Can it even be modified? 
Would a positive- answer to these ques¬ 
tions solve the problem of human lon¬ 
gevity? Nobody knows. But there is at 
least a presumption that such questions 
reach right down to the roots and sources 
of physical life. And if that be so, then 
the legend of a Fountain of Youth, may 
not, after all, be an idle fancy. Perhaps 
it is a prophecy coming down to us out 
of the Dawn of Time. Perhaps it was 
known by experience to those first uni¬ 
cellular organisms that came out of the 
depths of the sea and ultimately became 
the progenitors of all life on this earth. 
Perhaps—it is a memory! Who shall 
say? 

Many centuries ago there lived a naive 
123 


The Fountain of Youth 

old Spaniard named Ponce de Leon. 
He sought in Florida for a necromantic 
spring in whose flashing waters a man 
might become eternally young, and live 
forever in the flesh. 

Ponce de Leon did not live forever in 
the flesh. He was presently gathered to 
his fathers. But over his story the world 
will always breathe a wistful sigh, 
through its laughter at such foolishness; 
always it will tenderly repeat the tale, 
and that gallant old nobleman of Spain, 
who craved living water, will have at 
least an immortal name because he sought 
an immortal thing. 

STILL SEARCHING FOR THE FOUNTAIN 

We are still searching for his Foun¬ 
tain. The thought of it draws the human 
race today as strongly as it did then. We 
laugh, of course, at the trusting faith 
which we are pleased to call his folly; 

124 






This is a very satisfactory position for taking a shower to the face, throat and chest, 
as well as to the entire body, and may be used occasionally in place of the position 
shown on page 103. Such a position will necessitate the using of a shield for the nose 
and cotton or other plugging for the ears. The head support may be used while lying 

on the side and with the face down as well. 









The Fountain of Youth 

but back of the search he made there 
seems always to lie a background of 
world-old wisdom at which no man can 
laugh without committing a kind of blas¬ 
phemy. Instinctively we know that in 
one respect at least, Ponce de Leon had 
his hand upon the Truth. He may have 
been wrong in the notion that he could, 
perhaps, make his body live forever, and 
that he could confer physical immortality 
upon the human race; but he was quite 
right in thinking that, when all was said 
and done, what he and the rest of the 
human race needed was a Bath—a real 
Bath—a super-Bath—a cleansing that 
would strike through the very marrow 
of the bones; that would cleave through 
the outer husk and covering of the body 
and lave those hidden sources of life that 
no scalpel has yet dissected and no micro¬ 
scope revealed; a Bath, if you please, that 
would wash and purify, within and with- 
126 


The New Blood-Washing Bath 


out, every separate and individual cell in 
the body, as a man might wash a divinely 
woven fabric, rinse it of all ‘impurities,, 
and thereafter joy to wear it; a Bath that 
would take the flesh of a man and make 
it sweet like the flesh of a child, doing for 
all men what the waters of Jordan did 
to the body of Naaman, the leper, who 
grumbled and doubted because the Man 
of God did not prescribe magic and dark 
rites, but said to him merely, “Wash and 
be clean.” 

That surely is the secret of all physical 
life. The thought is instinctive. We all 
feel its truth. It runs like a shining thread 
through the tapestry pattern of human 
history. We symbolize it even in the rite 
of baptism. Cleanliness, we think, is next 
to Godliness—and what is Godliness if it 
be not immortality? 

I repeat that back of the dream of 
Ponce de Leon there must be something 
127 


The Fountain of Youth 

vital, something valid, something practi¬ 
cable, something capable of direct appli¬ 
cation in ordinary life; and that if that 
were not the case* the world would not 
have clung to the story of his venture as 
it has. 

The human race needs a Bath. If we 
ever discover anything even remotely 
comparable to the fabled Fountain of 
Youth, it will be some Ultimate Bath, 
some method of applying water to the 
human body, within and without, in a 
manner more effective and more regen¬ 
erative than anything that has been known 
in the past. 

And now if human ingenuity has found 
a way to make water applications to the 
body tissues themselves, so that all the 
cells that compose them may be kept con¬ 
tinually washed clear of those accretions 
whose slow accumulation is believed to 
cause that stiffening and slowing-down 
128 


The New Blood-Washing Bath 


of the physical machine which we call 
Old Age, certainly it is not unreasonable 
to assume that in that event men will live 
to their full biological span, whatever 
that may prove to be, whether a century 
or many centuries; and that when death 
finally comes it will be something totally 
different from the tragical and violent 
thing it now is—a beautiful mellowing, 
rather; a ripening, a sweet and conscious 
transition, the “euthanasia” of the Greeks. 


129 


CHAPTER XI 


How the Prolonged Hot Shower 
Invigorates and Rejuvenates 

JYJANT remarkable reports have come 
to me of the results that have fol¬ 
lowed the use of the blood-washing bath. 

In my own sanitorium there have been 
some cases that were nothing short of 
startling. One case, in particular, was 
most unusual, that of Mr. David Riddle, 
of California, treated by my assistant, 
Dr. Thomas Machinski. 

Mr. Riddle had suffered for years from 
a hip-joint trouble which had been treated 
by many of the most eminent specialists 
in the West. 

For years he had suffered with acute 
pain, which made it impossible for him 
130 


The Prolonged Shower 


to enjoy sound sleep. His hip joint was 
ankylosed as rigid as a piece of stone. 

He had spent two years in an oste¬ 
opathic institution in Kirksville, Mo., 
without deriving any appreciable benefit 
^from his stay. Before coming under my 
observation he had worn a plaster cast 
for many agonizing months. 

In fact, no hope was expressed by the 
famous physicians and osteopaths who 
had treated him that he would ever again 
leave his bed. 

WHAT A FEW TREATMENTS DID 

Yet, after a very few treatments he was 
not only able to discard his plaster cast, 
but he was actually walking about the 
Resort, with the aid of a pair of crutches. 
And, not only that, but he was able to 
enjoy a daily automobile ride, in perfect 
comfort, absolutely free from pain and 
131 


The Fountain of Youth 

able to sleep soundly at night, without 
the necessity of taking a hypnotic. 

This wonderful transformation was ac¬ 
complished by the blood-washing bath 
which has aroused a tremendous storm of 
inquiry all over the country. 

This treatment, which seems to cause 
eliminative and metabolic changes never 
before developed in a bath, consists, as 
has been described, in a prolonged expo¬ 
sure of the body to a hot shower-bath — 
not an ordinary lukewarm tub-bath, such 
as is now so frequently given in our 
sanitoriums and State Hospitals, for the 
calming of violent cases, and for the re¬ 
lief of acutely painful conditions, but a 
seven-foot fall of water heated to a tem¬ 
perature of from 110 to 112 degrees. 
This lasts for two hours and is followed 
by brisk massage and manipulation. 

Not only were the stiffened hips thor¬ 
oughly manipulated, but also the abdo- 
132 


The Prolonged Shower 

men, over the liver and the intestines, was 
thoroughly stimulated. 

After the second treatment Mr. Riddle 
expressed himself as comparatively free 
from pains; and within two weeks he had 
regained a very perceptible degree of 
function in the effected parts. 

I feel quite positive—as much so as any 
physician can be about anything—that 
complete recovery will ultimately be 
brought about in Mr. Riddle’s case, and 
that this Western patient will finally re¬ 
turn to California a well man. 

All forms of nervous and digestive 
troubles, many forms of skin eruptions, 
and, in fact, practically all varities of 
chronic disease are now being treated by 
myself, and by my pupils in the Ameri¬ 
can School of Naturopathy, who are 
vitally interested in this new hydrothera- 
peutic development—this remarkable new 
133 


The Fountain of Youth 

form of bath. Some of the results of these 
treatments are almost miraculous, so 
rapid and so effective are they. 

CHRONIC HEMORRHAGE CURED BY THE 
BLOOD-WASHING BATH 

There is the case of a Jewish lady— 
treated by many regular and drugless 
doctors. This lady had suffered from 
bleeding of the rectum for many months. 
The condition resulted from inflamma¬ 
tion of the rectum (proctitis), and proved 
so obstinate that no medical treatment 
seemed to afford anything but temporary 
relief. 

I gave this patient a two-hour exposure 
to the hot shower. The distressing condi¬ 
tion was relieved after the very first treat¬ 
ment. In several weeks there has been 
no return of the bleeding—something 
that had not happened before since the 
condition arose. 


The Prolonged Shower 

Also, Dr. Alfrede Warsaw, of Wash¬ 
ington, D. C., whose very unusual case 
I have already referred to, has written 
me regarding his continued improvement, 
and his experience with some of his own 
^patients. Dr. Warsaw says: 

“I feel that I am getting younger and 
healthier, and those who cannot see that 
wonderful change must be blind. I have 
again taken a full eight hours’ treatment, 
with brilliant*success. The morbid mat¬ 
ter of which I had so very much in my 
system is still breaking out. That shows 
that Mr. Parasco’s discovery represents 
absolutely the truth. I experimented 
with one of my old patients with the 
same result 

“With another whose system was full 
of poisonous matter, I succeeded in puri¬ 
fying the blood. The treatment created 
a big boil on the neck. This opened, and 
the poison ran out for two days. Besides 
135 


The Fountain of Youth 

this he coughed and coughed. The re¬ 
sult was that a great amount of sticky, 
odorous mucus was voided for days and 
days. Parasco’s discovery works won¬ 
ders. 

“As for myself, I am still experiment¬ 
ing, not always with an eight-hour bath. 
Sometimes I take six or five or even four 
hours to the treatment. I have had 
twenty-five treatments in all. I feel 
splendid, and at least twenty years 
younger. My blood pressure is now 
141 >4 instead of 175 or 178, a very re¬ 
markable and important result, as you 
will admit. 

“Also, my liver and kidneys work 
perfectly. Everything represents health, 
health, health. 

“I have had a marvelous experience 
with a tuberculosis patient. His system 
is filled with pus, which now is being 
rapidly removed. The patient suffers 
136 


The Prolonged Shower 

terribly at times. But I am watching 
him closely, and in a short time I am 
convinced that he will be a new being. 
Since his first treatment he is expectorat¬ 
ing and spitting all day long. 

“This treatment naturally may take 
some time to bring about rejuvenation, 
as it is, necessary to remove the discarded 
tissues before new healthy cells can be 
built up. 

“Whether it is possible to put an eighty- 
year-old man, regardless of condition, un¬ 
der hot water for eight hours, I do not 
profess to say. 

“From my own experience, I have little 
doubt that such a course would not only 
be feasible, but beneficial to such an ex¬ 
tent that one would b^ almost warranted 
in stating that the Fountain of Youth had 
been discovered at last, and that old age 
and its accompanying infirmities could be 
held at bay for many, many years. 5 ’ 

137 


The Fountain of Youth 


These are strong words. Yet the re¬ 
markable clinical results that have fol¬ 
lowed the use of this blood-washing bath 
warrants the most enthusiastic commen¬ 
dation of its virtues. 

STRIKING STATEMENT 

One prominent New York physician* 
who had attended one of my lectures at 
the Phrenological Institute, recently said: 

“There isn’t a particle of a doubt that 
the principles of the treatment discovered 
by Mr. Parasco are strictly scientific. 

“First and foremost, hot water, falling 
continuously, as it does, from a height, 
and striking every square inch of the body 
with considerable force, must have a 
cleansing action found in no other form 
of bath. For the water has an actual 
penetrative force, enabling it to be more 
rapidly absorbed into the two million odd * 
pores of the body. 


138 


The Prolonged Shower 


“We know that there is a decided ab¬ 
sorption of water by these pores, from the 
fact that many intelligent sailors, cast 
away after shipwreck, have saved their 
lives by letting their bodies soak in the 
sea water with which they were sur¬ 
rounded, at intervals during the day. 

“Were they to attempt to drink this 
water, they would almost inevitably go 
insane from the aggravation of their 
thirst by the salt water. 

“However, the pores let the water in, 
while sifting the saline elements out. 

“Again there is the stimulation that 
follows the gentle whipping of all the 
peripheral’ or surface nerves, which is 
reflected into the deepest structures of 
the body, by the nerves connected with 
these surface nerves. 

“Therefore, when the stimulation is 
carried to the nerve-centers of both of 
these systems, a restraining impulse is 
139 


The Fountain of Youth 


sent to the nerves within the muscular 
coats. So, following a contraction, we 
have relaxation and consequent filling 
and distention of the blood vessels in the 
parts affected by water stimulation. 

“Again, there is no doubt that the arti¬ 
ficial fever produced by the hot water 
striking the body for from two to eight 
hours at a time, will help oxidize, or bum 
up, quantities of matter, which, if they 
are left to accumulate in the system, must 
undoubtedly become a menace to the 
organism. 

“Under the gentle cleansing action, and 
the stimulating massage of the blood¬ 
washing bath, aided by the increased 
amount of oxygen that water falling from 
a height would have, there is a rejuvenat¬ 
ing and invigorating influence that is 
found in no other form of bath, 

“It is more than likely that this bath 
will gradually supersede all other varie- 
140 


The Prolonged Shower 

ties of health baths in the best sanitoriums 
and hospitals. 

“Meanwhile, there is no reason why, 
in any private home properly equipped 
with a shower bath and an adequate sup¬ 
ply of hot water, men and women might 
not be able successfully to treat them¬ 
selves for many chronic troubles that may 
have resisted the best efforts, even of emi¬ 
nent specialists.” 

Rest assured that a great discovery has 
been made, one that is likely to provoke 
more serious discussion among scientific 
minds than any other discovery made in 
the last decade. It is one which is going 
to have a more significant effect on health 
and longevity than nine out of ten of all 
the so-called marvels of medicine. 

Mr. Macfadden, who has followed 
the progress of “natural treatment” al¬ 
most from its inception, heartily agrees 
with me in this, and, I am happy to say, 
141 


The Fountain of Youth 

is lending the weight of his great influ¬ 
ence toward popularizing the discovery 
in a way which must contribute much to 
the solution of this most important of all 
problems—the problem of conserving 
human health and human life. 


[THE END] 


142 



Vitality Supreme 

for Men and Women 

By BERNARR MACFADDEN 


I F you exercise your arm, 
you strengthen it. If you 
exercise your memory, it 
improves. If you exercise 
your judgment, it becomes 
more dependable. If you ex¬ 
ercise the seat of 
vitality —energy 
—a n d virility, 
these functions 
are developed to 
a more desirable 
state of vigor. 

This is the 
special message 
of Bernarr Mac- 
fadden in Vitali¬ 
ty Supreme. 

It is the man 
with vitality and 
inexhaustible en¬ 
ergy who holds the first place 
in any endeavor. 

From the vast sources of 
information available to him 
as well as his own experi¬ 


ments and investigations, Mr. 
Macfadden has ferreted out 
the secret that makes men 
giants of success. This book 
teaches men and women how 
to be one hundred per cent. 

alive , thus giving 
them a great 
advantage over 
their average 
competitor in 
Life’s conquest. 

It is not so 
much a matter of 
greater effort as 
it is of different 
effort. Once you 
know the right 
way to take ad¬ 
vantage of the 
V i t a 1 i ty prin¬ 
ciple, you will find it the 
easiest and most enjoyable 
mode of life. 

The book contains numer¬ 
ous exercises for both sexes. 


Functional Activity — The 
Secret of Power 
Stimulating the Source of 
Stamina and Vitality 
Straightening and Strength¬ 
ening the Spine 
Cleansing and Stimulating 
the Alimentary Canal 
Exercise for Vitality Build¬ 
ing 

Strengthening the Stomach 
What to Eat 

Pressure Movements for 
Building Inner Strength 
Blood Purification 
Mind—The Master Force 
for Health or Disease 
The Daily Regimen 


Price $2.00 


In ordering, use form on the last page. 


- 















Macfadden’s Encyclopedia 
of Physical Culture 



A NYONE whose interest in Physical Culture is sincere, 
anyone who is determined to make the most out of his 
k life—to get all of the happiness and enjoyment that 
this world affords, anyone who wants the protection of expert 
advice on any phase of health or sickness that may arise should 
buy the Encyclopedia of Physical Culture . The question of 
text and reference books is answered, then, once and for all. 

Practically everyone has some important health problem. 
Some have many such problems. No matter what these may 
be in your own case, this set of books will give you the infor¬ 
mation that will enable you to solve your problem. In those 
homes where this Encyclopedia is found, the doctor rarely 
or never enters . Think what this means. 

The set is in five volumes—newly revised—and contains 
over 1300 illustrations in its 3000 and more pages. It con¬ 
tains a complete education in Physical Culture and Natural 
Curative methods—the equivalent of twenty comprehensive 
books on vividly interesting phases of health and vitality 
building. 










The Real Secret of 
Keeping Young 

By BERNARR MACFADDEN 


H OW long do yon expect to 
live? This is a serious 
question asked in all seri¬ 
ousness. And it deserves serious 
consideration on your part. If 
you are a man or woman of mid¬ 
dle age, where do you expect to 
be ten years from now? And if 
you have left middle-age behind, 
if you are 50 or 60 or 70, where 
do you expect to be ten years 
! from now? What would you 
give to be able to defy old age 
for ten or twenty years beyond 
your time, to live to 80, 90 or 
100 in perfect 
health, retaining 
vitality and 
power of mind 
to the very last? 

YOU CAN 

DO IT 

The difference 
between youth 
and old age is 
not a matter of 
years but of the 
ability of your 
body to elimi¬ 
nate waste and 
to replace its worn out cells. 

Just so long as your system 
can throw off impurities as rap¬ 


idly as created and replace worn 
out cells with new ones, youth 
remains. 

But when waste matter is no 
longer eliminated promptly and 
broken-down cells are no longer 
immediately replaced, poisons ac¬ 
cumulate, the blood stream grows 
impure, the flesh begins to lose 
its firmness—old age is at hand. 

It is obvious then that if you 
could permanently retain the 
eliminative and recuperative 
powers you had at twenty-one 
you would virtually remain 
twenty-one in¬ 
definitely. 

“The Real Se¬ 
cret of Keeping 
Young” tells 
you how to 
retain these 
powers — not 
forever, of 
course, but for 
many years 
longer than you 
ordinarily 
would. It is 
filled with price¬ 
less knowledge that you need to 
know. Not magic but a world 
of common sense. 


Send for it to-day. You run no risk under 
our money back guarantee. Only $3 postpaid. 
In ordering, use form on the last page. 


This incomparable book consists of 
38 chapters sub-divided into six im¬ 
portant classifications: 

Maintaining Youth 
Exercise and Keeping Young 
Keeping Internally Clean 
Food and Diet for Deferring 
Old Age 

Life Saving Habits 

Basic Principles of Longevity 

All exercises and instruction rela¬ 
tive to diet carefully adapted to the 
requirements of the individual who 
has attained middle-age or over. 










Macfadden’s Encyclopedia 
of Physical Culture 


VOL. i. 


VOL. XL 


VOL. III. 


VOL. IV. 


(1) A complete work on Anatomy, fully illustrated. 

(2) A Physiology in plain language, and embracing many illus- 

trations. 

(3) A reliable and comprehensive handbook on Diet. 

(4) A complete Cook Book. 

(5) A book on Exercise In Its Relation to Health. 

(6) A handbook on Gymnastics , with full instructions on drills 

and apparatus work of every sort, with hundreds of 
illustrations. 

(7) A book illustrating and describing every form of Indoor 

and Outdoor Sports and Exercises —complete courses in 
Boxing, Wrestling, etc, 

(8) A complete handbook on Beauty Culture. 

(9) Handsome colored charts and instructions for Developing 

a Powerful y "'ysique. 

(10) The most complete and extensive work on Fasting ever pub¬ 

lished. 

(11) A comprehensive work on Hydrotherapy, including water 

treatments of every variety. 

(12) A book on Mechanical Therapeutics, giving full details and 

scores of pages of illustrations of physcultopathic treat¬ 
ments. 

(13) A thorough work on First Aid with drugless methods. 

(14) A lavishly illustrated work on Diagnosis, giving plainly 

written instructions for detecting diseases of every sort, 

and finding their cause. 

(15) A comprehensive illustrated book on Home Treatment for 

All Diseases, alphabetically arranged and written in 
plain language. 


VOL. V. 


(16) An Anatomy of the Sexual Organs. 

(17) Sexual Weakness and Disease, Their Cause and Cure. 

(18) Rules for Happy Marriage and Parenthood. 

(19) A complete work on Childbirth —how to make it safe and 

comfortable. 

(20) A practical work on the Training of Children. 


The complete set of five big volumes is priced at $ 35.00 upon our 
liberal time payment basis or at $31.50 for cash. 

Both offers include a one year’s subscription to Physical Culture 
Magazine. Use the coupon. 


TEA R OFF AND MAIL TO-DAY 

MACFADDEN PUBLICATIONS, Inc. 

Macfadden Building, 1926 Broadway, New York 

Send me for inspection Volume.of Encyclopedia of Physical Culture. 

I agree to return the volume in five days or pay $31.50 in cash or $35.00 on 
easy payments for Encyclopedia and subscription to Physical Culture. 

Full Name... 

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DOES TOBACCO 
HARM YOU? 


The entire subject of tobacco is 
thoroughly covered in this new 
book by Bernarr IVSacfadden 

The Truth About Tobacco 


By BERNARR MACFADDEN 


B ernarr macfad- 

DEN through the vast 
facilities at his com¬ 
mand has turned the cold, 
white, unprejudiced light of 
science upon tobacco. He has 
analysed it; he has analysed 
the smoke from it that is 
drawn into the human throat 
and lungs. He has traced 
every action and every reac¬ 
tion that each of the chemical 
elements constituting tobacco 
smoke has upon the human 
system so clearly, so surely 
that when you 
finish reading 
the chapters 
upon the effect 
of tobacco you 
know that to¬ 
bacco is harm¬ 
ful and you 
know why it is 
harmful. 

How to Break 
the Habit 
When you 
have learned 


the real effect that tobacco has 
upon you, you will want to 
stop smoking. And to dis¬ 
continue the habit will not be 
hard when you put into prac¬ 
tice the simple rules that Mr. 
Macfadden lays down in the 
final chapters of his remark¬ 
able book. Probably some¬ 
time in the past you decided 
to quit and the chances are 
that you did quit, only to re¬ 
sume after a few days had 
passed. By conforming to 
the rules Mr. Macfadden 
gives you, the 
same amount of 
effort you ex¬ 
pended without 
success should 
enable you to 
come through 
with dying col¬ 
ors, the victor 
over a habit 
that is harmful, 
expensive, un¬ 
sanitary and dis¬ 
tasteful to many 
of your friends. 


M others and 

Sweethearts 
If you feel that someone 
In whom you are interested 
is injuring himself with to¬ 
bacco, simply place this book 
where it will come to Ms 
attention and the probabil¬ 
ities are that it will have the 
desired effect. It is cer¬ 
tainly worth the trial. Heav¬ 
ily bound in cloth, tMs in¬ 
valuable book is priced at 
only $1.00. 


In ordering, use form on the last page. 











Manhood and Marriage 


By BERNARR MACFADDEN 


S OME men need instruction. Some need both instruction 
and specific help. And many need instruction, practical 
help, and strong inspiration in their fight to regain their 
true manhood. 

Prominent physicians say that a copy of this volume should 
be placed in the hands of every mother and father and every 
adolescent boy and girl in America. It is well suited for this 
educational purpose. 

Every man is confronted at some time with problems of 
health, energy, and sex functioning. The clear, direct state¬ 
ments of Manhood and Marriage at such a time point out the 
right path. 

And to those suffering unhappy marriage; or the ravages of 
vitality-destroying disorders; fighting in dark uncertainty or 
sunk in the depths of despair, this book gives enlightenment, 
encouragement, the inspiration to “go on,” and the assurance 
of final triumph. 

This volume treats very thoroughly every phase of the physi¬ 
cal problems of men. It gives cause and symptoms of the 
various sex diseases and outines the rational treatment for each. 
In a substantial cloth binding; it costs only $3—satisfaction 
guaranteed. 


A FEW OF THE 34 CHAPTERS 


Am I a Complete Man? 

The Age to Marry 
Selecting a Wife 
Love-Making and Its Dangers 
Establishing the Intimate Rela¬ 
tions of Marriage 
Marital Mistakes and Excesses 
Regulating Marital Intimacies 
Conserving Love—The Basis of 
Marital Happiness 
Can a Wrecked Marriage be 
Reclaimed ? 


How Virility Is Destroyed 
Seminal Losses 

The Plain Pacts About Vari¬ 
cocele 

The Troublesome Prostate 
Gland 
Sterility 

How to Build Virility 
Exercises for Building Virility 
The Prevention of Venereal 
Disease 

Various Problems of Young 
Men 


In ordering, ute form on tho Icut page. 










Strengthening the Eyes 


By BERNARR MACFADDEN 


W HY tie yourself to eye-glasses for life or why 
continue using them if you are already doing 
so, when it is highly probable it is not neces¬ 
sary? If you are suffering from any of the following 
eye troubles you can secure wonderful relief through 
Bernarr Macfadden’s incomparable treatise upon 
eye-sight— 


Faulty Refraction 
Far Sightedness 
Near Sightedness 
Astigmatism 


Cross Eyes 
Squint Eyes 
Eye Headaches 
Eye Strain 


The extent of the relief obtained by thousands of sufferers 
is almost unbelievable. It is entirely possible that after a 
few weeks of home treatment using this work as your guide 
you will be able to do away with the use of glasses. 

Here are some of the chapter heads. They will give you 
an idea of the value and scope of “STRENGTHENING 
THE EYES”:— 

The Anatomy of the Human Eye, The Physiology and 
Physics of Vision, Weak Eyes, Errors of Refraction—Their 
Cause and Cure, Color Blindness, Squint, Injuries, Common 
Diseases of the Eye, Eye Exercises, Saving the Sight of 
the Children, Eye Focusing Exercises, The Eye Bath, 
Eye Hygiene, Massage, Constitutional Improvement for 
Strengthening the Eyes, Sleep, Test Your Own Eyes. 

You owe it to yourself and to your family to secure a copy 
without delay. 

Price $ 5.00 

Complete with eye testing chart 

In ordering, use form on the last page 







EATING 

FOR 

HEALTH 

AND 

STRENGTH 

By BERNARR MACFADDEN 


T HE matter of diet, its extreme importance, and its profound 
effect upon the human system has until recent years been more 
a matter of surmise than of exact knowledge. 

During the last few years many of the world’s greatest specialists 
have been devoting a large amount of time to careful study, close 
observation and extensive experiment as regards the effect of differ¬ 
ent foods taken into the human stomach. 

To-day we know that certain foods and combinations of food that 
have always been considered excellent are little less than rank poison. 
And also that other articles of diet hitherto thought to be of little value 
are absolutely necessary to the highest type of physical development. 

“Eating for Health and Strength” by Bernarr Macfadden is in our 
estimation the greatest, most helpful and most authentic work upon 
the tremendously important subject of diet that has ever been writ¬ 
ten. Once you are acquainted with its contents you would not trade it 
for its weight in gold if you could not get another. 


Some of the Subjects Covered by 
“Eating for Health and Strength” 


Food Science and Personal Effi¬ 
ciency. 

Food Chemistry. 

The Physiology of Nutrition. 

New Discoveries of Experimental 
Biology. 

What to Eat. 

Balancing the Diet. 

How Much to Eat. 

When and How to Eat. 

Food Production—Manufacturing 
and Marketing. 


The Home Preparation of Food. 
Practical Food Economy. 

Eating for Strength and Muscular 

Efficiency. 

Food and Mental Efficiency. 

Eating to Gain Weight. 

Eating to Reduce Weight. 

Food and Sexual Life. 

Feeding the Baby. 

Feeding the Children. 

Eating to Prevent or Cure Disease. 


Heavily bound in cloth—276 pages of priceless knowledge— 

only $2.00 

In ordering, use form on the last page. 








HAIR CULTURE 

By BERNARR MACFADDEN 

LUXURIANT HAIR 

is Nature’s Gift to Humanity which 
millions throw away because they 
do not know the simple, natural 
laws upon the observance of which 
a luxuriant growth depends. Un¬ 
less you are completely bald, 
Bernarr Macfadden’s wonderful 
treatise will be of priceless value 
to you. If your hair is still thick 
and glossy—keep it so. There is 
no necessity for your hair getting 
thin or turning prematurely gray; 
a reasonable amount of proper care 
will keep it strong and luxuriant 
throughout life. And if it is already 
falling out or turning gray the same care will do much 
toward restoring it. Mr. Macfadden tells the simple, natural 
and effective methods for treating the hair and scalp. Of 
equal benefit to men and women. 

The following is a list of some of the chapter heads. They 
will give you an idea of the scope and value of this truly 
remarkable book. 



You would not think to look 
at Mr. Macfadden’s luxuriant 
growth of hair that at one 
time he was in grave danger 
of becoming bald. 


Hair as an Attribute to Beauty 
Facts Everyone Should Know 
About the Hair 
Care of Healthy Hair 
How to Care for Baby’s Scalp 
Facts About Soaps and Sham¬ 
poos 

The Cause of Hair Troubles 


Dandruff 

Parasitic Diseases of the Scalp 

Falling Hair 

Baldness 

Gray Hair 

Superfluous Hair 

Hair Tonics 

Eyebrows and Eyelashes 
Hair Dressing 


Heavily bound in cloth, post-paid, $ 2.00 

In ordering, use form on the last page 








USE THIS ORDER FORM 


W E have made it a point of honor to see that all 
books going out under our name shall in every 
way maintain the high standard set by PHYSI¬ 
CAL CULTURE Magazine. Every book in PHYSI¬ 
CAL CULTURE HEALTH LIBRARY was written to 
fill a particular and well defined need; each is the very 
finest work procurable upon the subject involved. 

Place check marks against the names of any of these 
books that interest you, enclose remittance, and mail this 
index to us. They will be sent by return mail with the 
understanding that if, upon examination you do not wish 
to keep them, you may return them within 5 days after 
receipt and your money will be refunded without ques¬ 
tion. 


[ ] Constipation—Its Cause and 


[ ] Eating for Health and 

Strength . 2.00 

[ ] Macfadden’s Encyclopedia of 

Physical Culture (5 vols.). 35.00 
[ ] Flat Foot — Its Prevention 

and Cure .50 

[ ] Gaining Weight.50 

[ ] Headaches—How Cured.50 

[ ] How to Keep Fit. 2.00 

[ ] How to Reduce Weight.50 

[ ] Miracle of Milk. 2.00 

[ ] Manhood and Marriage.3.00 

[ ] Hair Culture.2.00 

[ ] Strengthening the Eyes.5.00 


[ ] Strengthening Weak Nerves.? .50 


[ ] The Real Secret of Keeping 

Young . 3.00 

[ ] The Truth About Tobacco... 1.00 

[ ] Vitality Supreme . 2.00 

[ ] Womanhood and Marriage.. 3.00 

Sex Education Series 

[ ] Sex Talks to Boys.50 

[ ] Sex Talks to Girls.50 

[ ] Talks to a Young Man About 

Sex .50 

[ ] Talks to a Young Woman 

About Sex.50 

[ ] Talks to a Prospective Hus¬ 
band About Sex.50 

[ ] Talks to a Prospective Wife 

About Sex.50 


Address Replies to 

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Macfadden Building, 1926 Broadway, New York 

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